During a conversation, a man said to another: “I’d have liked to see you.” Can you guess how he said this in French?
Before looking at the answer, let’s back up for a minute.
Maybe you’ll remember a while back we looked at j’haïs ça, meaning I hate it. (J’haïs sounds like ja / i.) More specifically, we looked at the example j’haïs ça, l’hiver, meaning I hate winter.
Ça means it, that here. It’s possible to say just j’haïs l’hiver, but ça is very often included even if the hated thing itself is also mentioned. More literally, j’haïs ça, l’hiver means I hate it, winter or winter, I hate it.
In that same post, we also looked at how ça is also often included with j’aime, such as in j’aime ça, l’hiver. Although it’s possible to say j’aime l’hiver without ça, you’ll typically hear it said in conversational French as j’aime ça, l’hiver.
J’haïs ça, l’hiver.
J’aime ça, l’hiver.
J’haïs ça, la neige.
J’aime ça, la neige.
Knowing this, can you make a new attempt at saying “I’d have liked to see you”?
Here’s how the man said it:
J’aurais aimé ça, te voir.
It’s possible to say j’aurais aimé te voir, but, again, that ça is often included in spoken language.
If you liked this post, you might like the new OffQc guide Entendu au Québec.
