# EN: so that he couldn't escape



## Minaeth

Hi native English speakers!

Are the following translations correct? 

1. I locked the door so that he *wouldn't *escape: j'ai fermé la porte à clé *pour ne pas* qu'il s'échappe pas / *pour qu'il* ne s'échappe pas.

2. I locked the door so that he *couldn't* escape: J'ai fermé la porte à clé, *c'est pourquoi* */ donc* il n'a pas pu s'échapper.

3. Is the following sentence correct? *I locked the door so that he shouldn't escape*. = It sounds wrong... Is there a context in which we would say that? What would be the difference with sentences 1 and 2?

Thanks a lot!


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## Glasguensis

1. I locked the door so that he *wouldn't *escape: j'ai fermé la porte à clé pour qu'il ne s'évaderait pas.

2. I locked the door so that he *couldn't* escape: J'ai fermé la porte à clé, pour qu'il ne pourrait pas s'évader.

3. Is the following sentence correct? *I locked the door so that he shouldn't escape*. This is correct, and means the same as 1. See this thread for a discussion on the difference between shall and will (or should and would).


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## Moon Palace

If I may: 
2 = _J'ai fermé la porte à clé afin qu'il / pour qu'il ne *puisse* pas s'évader. _


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## Glasguensis

Moon Palace said:


> If I may:
> 2 = _J'ai fermé la porte à clé afin qu'il / pour qu'il ne *puisse* pas s'évader. _


If you can't use the conditional (I wasn't sure) it would be _pour qu'il ne *pût* pas s'évader_, surely?


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## Donaldos

Glasguensis said:


> If you can't use the conditional (I wasn't sure) it would be _pour qu'il ne *pût* pas s'évader_, surely?



Techniquement, oui, mais de nos jours, c'est peu probable.


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## Moon Palace

Glasguensis said:


> If you can't use the conditional (I wasn't sure) it would be _pour qu'il ne *pût* pas s'évader_, surely?



Strictly speaking, yes. But this use is disappearing little by little, and the imperfect subjunctive is hardly ever used these days, except for literary writings. It is now accepted to replace it with a present subjunctive, regardless of tense agreement.
And you can't use the conditional here because of "pour que" which is always followed by a subjunctive.


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## Glasguensis

In that case how do you know the timeline? Is he still locked in the room or not?


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## Moon Palace

Glasguensis said:


> In that case how do you know the timeline? Is he still locked in the room or not?


Isn't this question also valid for the English: _I locked the door so that he wouldn't escape?
_No idea, we only know what the person did and his / her intention. Whether or not it was successful / efficient is not said, is it?


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## Glasguensis

Moon Palace said:


> Isn't this question also valid for the English: _I locked the door so that he wouldn't escape?_
> No idea, we only know what the person did and his / her intention. Whether or not it was successful / efficient is not said, is it?


That's not exacly what I meant. In English there is a difference between "so that he couldn't escape" and "so that he can't escape": in the second case he is definitely still in the room, but if we use the present subjunctive in both cases we can't make this distinction. To me it also seems slightly unusual to use the present tense when talking about something in the distant past (for example, how would you translate "in ancient Egypt they buried the slaves in the burial chamber *so that they couldn't tell people* how to find it"?)


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## Moon Palace

But neither the imperfect subjunctive nor the present subjunctive inform us on where the person is now. 
If you say _I locked the door so that he can't escape, _the situation is in the present indeed. And in French, it would be the context that would allow us to understand where the person is now.
But the same goes for the English: the reason why you would use either _can't _or _couldn't _has to do with the time when the situation is set, not so much with where the person is now. 
However strange it may sound, the same phenomenon would apply to the sentence about Egypt, and since the subjunctive is linked to the intent, not to the result it does not inform us on the outcome of the deed.


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## Glasguensis

Whilst I understand all your points, I have to insist that in this case there is a clear difference between French and English - in English, if you say "can't", you are saying that (as far as you know) he hasn't escaped up to now. This is an additional piece of information beyond expressing your intent. It seems that in French you would need to explicitly add this, because all you're talking about is your intent.


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## Minaeth

I think that the possible ambiguity in French has to do with the fact that SO THAT in English means both "pour que, de sorte que" and "donc, c'est pourquoi".

*I locked the door so that he couldn't escape*, with no other context and because of the past-tense context, may mean:

- pour qu'il ne puisse pas s'échapper. (Mais peut-être qu'il a réussi quand même, on n'en sait rien)

- de sorte qu'il n'a pas pu s'échapper. On est sûr qu'il ne s'est pas échappé dans la mesure où j'ai fermé la porte. 
In order to avoid any ambiguity, we could also say "I locked the door, so that he *was not able* to escape", couldn't we?

When pronouncing the sentence orally, there wouldn't be any ambiguity, because of the intonation pattern, am I right?


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## Glasguensis

That's an interesting point about the translation of "so that" - it hadn't occurred to me that by translating it differently you could avoid this apparent "limitation" of *pour que*, although that doesn't help you determine whether it was* pour que* or *de sorte que* which was actually intended!

But I don't understand what you mean about the intonation pattern - can you explain?


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## Minaeth

If you read the sentence aloud, if there is no coma in the written sentence and if you intent to say "pour qu'il ne s'échappe pas", only expressing what you intented to do by locking the door, then you would not have a kind of "oral break"  when saying the whole sentence.

If you want to say "Comme j'ai fermé la porte, dans la mesure où j'ai fermé la porte, il n'a pas pu s'échapper, il est toujours à l'intérieur", then you would briefly have an "oral break" between "I locked the door" and "so that", just the way you would if there was a coma. 

I don't know if that makes sense, sorry I don't know the exact words to explain the phenomenon.
Do you see what I mean?


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## Glasguensis

Okay, thanks - I now understand but I don't really agree - for me putting a break there just sounds slightly odd and doesn't change the meaning. But perhaps someone else has a different opinion on it?


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## SBcavalière

In American English one hardly ever hears "shouldn't" in place of "wouldn't" or couldn't." While it is correct, it reminds me of something a British person from the 1950s might say. 

I would almost certainly say, "so that he couldn't" (physically impossible) or "so that he wouldn't" (mentally, he has a reason not to/I have deterred him from escaping).


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## Minaeth

SBcavalière said:


> In American English one hardly ever hears "shouldn't" in place of "wouldn't" or couldn't." While it is correct, it reminds me of something a British person from the 1950s might say.
> 
> I would almost certainly say, "so that he couldn't" (physically impossible) or "so that he wouldn't" (mentally, he has a reason not to/I have deterred him from escaping).


 
Very interesting, thanks for answering.

Glasguensis, would you also say that "so that he shouldn't" is very formal? Is this something anyone might use?


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## Glasguensis

I agree with SBCavalière that this use of will/shall is dying out, especially in the would/should form. I can't really imagine nowadays anyone naturally using the sentence you gave as an example - sorry for not mentioning this in my original reply.

What you still sometimes see (at least in British English) is the formula "I should be grateful if you would...", which has the benefit of avoiding the repetition of "would".


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