# FR: I heard (it) when he came



## MindBoggle

Bonsoir a tous!

Which one (if not both or neither) of the following two sentences is correct?

J'ai entendu quand il est venu.
J'ai l'entendu quand il est venu.

Anybody knows?

MindBoggle


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## jujulicious

Bonsoir,

Both sentences sound weird actually ...especially the second one which is not gramatically correct.

but "j'ai entendu quand il est venu " would be acceptable orally...

do you have a context ???

Perhaps you meant " je l'ai entendu quand il est venu " 

and in that case , "L' " could refer to someone who would be the same person as "il" 

but i think the sentence should be rephrased 

i hope i could help you a little bit ...


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## Chimel

I agree with Jujulicious. The first sentence is correct but the most natural way to say it would be "Je l'ai entendu venir".


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## MindBoggle

Thank you!

It was intended as a translation of* I heard (it) when he came.
*I just translated word for word: Je _ai entendu_ quand il _est venu_.
But you say that something like *Je l'ai entendu venir *is more natural in French.
I suppose that even in English* I heard him come *would be more natural, but I needed a template for another sentence, namely *He heard (it) when (such and such happened)*, and I was wondering whether or not I needed the object* it *in French. Then you suggest *Je l'ai entendu quand il est venu*, which sounds good, but doesn't that mean *I heard him when he came. *The direct object is not* him *but *the fact that he came*. Thinking about it again, maybe the translation should be *J'en ai entendu quand il est venu. *(Please correct me if I put that *en* in the wrong place). That would be, I guess *I heard (thereof) when he came*, which is close enough.
Would that be correct?


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## jujulicious

"j'en ai entendu quand il est venu " would mean that you heard things ( with a meaning of lots of things/ words ... ) when he came as if you had been warned about things when he came


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## MindBoggle

Ok?

But how, then, would I say that I heard it when he came?


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## jujulicious

i would say " je l'ai bien entendu quand il est arrivé " ( with the inherent meaning that when he came either it made noise or you could not ignore it ... )

is it closer ???


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## MindBoggle

jujulicious said:


> i would say " je l'ai bien entendu quand il est arrivé "



I think the meaning is probably perfect, but I'm still left wondering about that *le.* In the above sentence, what exactly is the *le* that I bien entendu? Is it, as you wrote: 





> "L' " could refer to someone who would be the same person as "il"


 Could it also refer to something else? Could* il *refer to* it *as in English, i.e. the whole phrase following *quand*? Does it refer to that in your suggestion?


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## jujulicious

in this sentence "L' " only refers to the person ( he ) who came not the whole clause following quand 

i think "quand" excludes any possibility that "l'" refers to the whole clause 

if it refered to the whole clause it would be something like " je l'ai bien entendu arriver "  i heard him come


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## Maître Capello

jujulicious said:


> if it refered to the whole clause it would be something like " je l'ai bien entendu arriver "  i heard him come


No, even in that example, _l'/le_ refers to the person, not the temporal clause.

Contrary to English, in French I don't think we ever use any redundant pronoun to refer to an explicit subordinate clause. We use a pronoun only if the clause is implied or if it has been mentioned in an earlier sentence.


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## MindBoggle

Maître Capello said:


> Contrary to English, in French I don't think we ever use any redundant pronoun to refer to an explicit subordinate clause. We use a pronoun only if the clause is implied or if it has been mentioned in an earlier sentence.



So, in French I cannot say: I heard it when he came? I have to say, in stead: I heard him when he came?
Isn't there some way of distinguishing between a) I heard it (i.e. the event) when it happened, and b) I heard him (the person) when he caused it to happen.

In short: Do these two English sentences translate into the exact same French sentence:

I heard it when he came.
I heard him when he came.


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## Maître Capello

Well, they _could_ be translated into the same sentence, but as already suggested earlier, they would be best translated as follows:

I heard it when he came. → _Je l'ai entendu rentrer_. (_l'_ being "him")
I heard him when he came. → _Je l'ai entendu quand il est rentré_.


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## Chimel

MindBoggle said:


> In short: Do these two English sentences translate into the exact same French sentence:
> 
> I heard it when he came.
> I heard him when he came.


Can you imagine a concrete situation where the first sentence would be true and not the second one? A situation when you heard "it" (= the fact that he came) without hearing "him" (= the person coming).

I cannot (or it's really far-fetched). So it's not quite illogical that both sentences would be translated the same in a language.

If the difference really matters, then you can use Maître Capello's suggestion.


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## MindBoggle

Ok, thanks.

Of course an exact translation is never possible, but in some cases it's more possible than in others. It seems to me that this is one of those other cases. 

You write that: We never use any redundant pronoun to refer to an explicit subordinate clause. That is very surprising to me. In general I find that I'm often surprised when it comes to how subordinate clauses are treated in French. There is something very different about the way it works, compared to what I am used to from the Germanic languages (English, German, and Nordic). I think I understand the difference in this case, but in general this is an area where I'm struggling a bit.

But thank you to everybody for your kind help! 



Chimel said:


> Can you imagine a concrete situation where the first sentence would be true and not the second one?



I knew this would come... 

I don't think I can imagine a situation where the first sentence is true and the second is not, and I'm sure that the fact that I can't is the reason for the lack of this distinction. A language makes the distincitions it needs to, and since this one is not necessary, it isn't made.

But if you ask: does it make any difference? then the answer is: yes. It makes a difference, because somebody (like me) who is used to expressing certain things in certain ways, will have to do so in new ways.
I'm trying to learn in which cases these new ways are necessary. And why. And which ways to use in stead.
It's not easy.


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