Negatives
Negatives flip the meaning of a sentence by surrounding the verb with two parts, and French offers several nuanced forms for different contexts.
Basic Negative
The basic negative in French places ne before the verb and pas after it to cancel the action in a straightforward way.
Examples
| French Example | English Translation |
|---|---|
| ☕ Je ne bois pas de café. | I am not drinking coffee. |
| 🍞 Il ne mange pas de pain. | He is not eating bread. |
| 🥖 Elle ne prend pas de baguette. | She is not taking a baguette. |
| 🍰 Nous ne mangeons pas de gâteau. | We are not eating cake. |
| 🧃 Vous ne buvez pas de jus. | You are not drinking juice. |
| 🥐 Ils ne mangent pas de croissants. | They are not eating croissants. |
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Special Notes
In spoken French, the ne is often dropped, but it remains standard in writing and more formal speech.
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Other Negative Forms
French has other negative pairs like ne... jamais, ne... rien, and ne... personne that replace pas to express time, quantity, or identity more precisely.
ne... jamais
Use ne... jamais to say "never," placing jamais where pas would go.
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ne... rien
Use ne... rien to say "nothing" or "not anything," typically with the verb in between ne and rien.
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ne... personne
Use ne... personne to say "nobody" or "no one," and it can come after the verb or, if there's a past participle, after that.
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Other Forms
Forms like ne... plus (no more), ne... guère (hardly), and ne... nullement (not at all) work similarly by placing the second negative word where pas normally goes.
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Negatives with Infinitives
When a negative construction applies to an infinitive, ne and the negative word usually come before the infinitive, and if there's a preceding conjugated verb, ne sometimes disappears in speech.
Examples
| French Example | English Translation |
|---|---|
| 🥖 Je décide de ne pas acheter de pain. | I decide not to buy bread. |
| ☕ Elle préfère ne pas prendre de café. | She prefers not to have coffee. |
| 🍰 Nous allons ne pas manger de gâteau. | We are going to not eat cake. |
| 🧃 Ils ont choisi de ne pas boire de jus. | They chose not to drink juice. |
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Double Negatives
French double negatives pair ne with another negative word to create a single negative meaning; using two negatives outside these pairs can turn the sentence positive or sound odd.
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Summary
Negatives in French revolve around ne plus a second word like pas, jamais, or rien to shape meaning, and they adapt slightly in questions, infinitives, and more nuanced forms.
Last updated: Sun Sep 14, 2025