French note 6
Now I am going to deal with use of " ce que ".
Suppose you say , " I want a house " . It is a simple sentence. You can convey the meaning of this sentence in another way.
What I want , it is a house .
Or
What I want is a house.
Je veux une maison.
Ce que je veux , c'est une maison.
So ," ce que" is used as an object of the verb , " veux ". Moreover, " ce que " which comes at the beginning of the sentence is used without an antecedent .( that means there is nothing before , " ce que" in the sentence.)
Take another sentence ,
Children don't like what their fathers bought .
How to express the above sentence in French ?
Les enfants n' aiment pas ce que leur père ont acheté .
Observe the following phrase
She got good marks in maths which her father wanted.
Elle a reçu de bonnes notes , ce que son père a voulu.
In the above sentences, the antecedent of " ce que " itself is a sentence or a clause.
( Antecedent means something which precedes or comes before)
As in the case of " ce qui " , " ce que " is also used in the transformation of questions into
Indirect speech.
When the question is of the form , " qu'est -ce que " , we use "ce que"in indirect speech.
Observe the following examples
Elle me demande , " Qu'est -ce que vous voulez ? "
She asks me , " What do you want ? "
Elle me demande ce que je veux.
She asks me what I want.
Pierre demande à Jean , " Qu'est-ce que tu fais ? "
Peter asks John , " What are you doing ? "
Pierre demande à Jean ce qu'il fait.
Peter asks John what he is doing .
Mon père me demande, " Qu'est -ce que tu as dit à votre prof.? "
My father asks me, " What did you tell your teacher ? "
Mon père me demande ce que j'ai dit à mon prof.
My father asks ma what I told my teacher.
I hope things are clear now.
Happy learning .
Bonne journée !
Sayee Jayaraman
4/01/2015
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