Giáo trình động từ tiếng Pháp - Part I Living in the Here and Now: The Present Indicative -

Chapter 5

Reflecting on Pronominal Verbs

(Reflexive, Reciprocal, and Idiomatic)

In This Chapter

Explaining reflexive verbs

Clarifying reciprocal verbs

Discussing idiomatic verbs

The pronominal verb is one of the trickiest concepts for native English-speakers to under￾stand. You may be scratching your head, wondering how you can tell whether a verb

is pronominal or not. Don’t worry. You can easily tell because the infinitive is preceded by

the pronoun se (or s’ if the verb begins with a vowel or a mute h). For example, se laver

(to wash oneself), s’amuser (to have fun), and s’habiller (to get dressed) are all pronominal

verbs.

This chapter focuses on the three types of pronominal verbs: reflexive, reciprocal, and

idiomatic. They may seem tricky, but you do catch a few breaks: You conjugate pronominal

verbs the same way you conjugate regular French verbs, and the pronominal pronouns

(which each verb has) are the same whether the verb is reflexive, reciprocal, or idiomatic. If

you want more information about reflexive verbs and giving commands, check out Chapter 8,

and see Chapter 7 for information on using reflexive verbs when answering negatively.

Understanding Reflexive Verbs

Every pronominal verb has a pronominal pronoun in front of it. With reflexive verbs, this

pronoun is often referred to as the reflexive pronoun. The addition of the reflexive pronoun

doesn’t necessarily change the meaning of the verb, but it alerts you that the subject is doing

the action on itself. Laver (to wash) and se laver (to wash oneself) are a great example. Je lave

la voiture means I’m washing the car. The subject, je, is performing an action on something or

someone else — in this case, la voiture. Add a reflexive pronoun and you get Je me lave,

which means I wash/am washing myself. Now the subject is performing the action on itself.

Before you can conjugate reflexive verbs, you need to know about their unique pronouns.

Table 5-1 shows a list of subject pronouns and their corresponding reflexive pronouns. You

use these pronouns when you want to imply that the subject is doing the action on itself.

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