Forming The Negation

How to Make a Negative Sentence

Easy formula:

NE + VERB + PAS
Use ne…pas to make a negative sentence. Ne precedes the verb and pas follows it. Ne becomes n’ if the verb begins with a vowel or a mute h.

– Est-ce que Frankenstein est beau?   Is Frankenstein handsome? 

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– Non, il n’est pas beau.   No, he is not (handsome).  

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–Est-ce que tu es grande?   Are you tall? 

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–Non, je ne suis pas grande.   No, I am not tall.  

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I understand that so far in my explanations, I only used the verb être. But what if we want to make the negation out of other verbs such as manger (eat), parler (speak), etc? It’s easy, really. This formula above works for ALL verbs.

–Je parle le français mais je ne parle pas le mandarin.
I speak French but I do not speak Mandarin.

I hope you found this short grammar lesson useful. But if you have more questions, simply write a comment and I will be more than happy to assist you.
Merci.