Yau

"Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons."

Je cherche tout des mots en mon dictionnaire, et je sais que il dits. Mais je ne sais pas moi "its sentence structure". Pouvrez vous en expliciter pour moi?

Merci d'avance!

MikeL

"Que" here is followed by a verb in the subjunctive, expressing a wish:
"May..." or "Let..."
"May their foul blood irrigate our fields" is a rough translation; the reference is to the monarchist enemies of the revolutionary army. "Impur" is interesting because the aristocracy prided themselves on the purity of their blood!!

Yau

Merci Mike!

do you think it's okay to say "que je parle francais bien" to express that "i wish i could speak better french"?

The_FD

Hi Yau,

Well actually as Mike said "que" is followed by a subjonctive tense to express a wish but "que" is needed to change the subject as well.

the full sentence would be "je souhaiterais qu'un sang impure abreuve nos sillons"
so as you can read the subject changes from "je" (first) into "il" (third) after the "que"

But when you say "que je parle bien français" the full sentence would be "je souhaite que je parle bien français" though the subject does not change (remains "je" first). So you cannot use "que". And as you cannot use "que" you don't use a subjonctive tense anymore. Then you will have to use a conditional tense to express your wish, as follows: j'aimerai pouvoir mieux parler le français"


Hope I have been understandable here

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L'histoire de la famille Bourdillon
Les fêtes d'Hébé
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Titiping

If you speak german, you will understand what The FD explained. You must switch subjects between the main clause and the relative clause.

To reassure you: in fact, these sentences which begin with "que" are not used anymore today. This syntax was used in the 17th and 18th century, and some sentences remained. When you say "Vive la France!" for example, the sentence was "Que vive la France!" before. It is not truly a wish, but also a saying, "une devise". I think you have the same in English, I can't remember exactly what teachers said to me about it, but I think it would be old sentences beginning with "be it".

Now, as The FD put it, to express a wish, you must use "le conditionnel". To use this tense, you simply take the full verb "aimer", "finir", as you find it in a dictionnary, and add at the end "-ais" (je), "-ais" (tu), "-ait" (il/elle), "-ions" (nous), "-iez" (vous), "-aient" (ils/elles).
You thus obtain : "J'aimerais aller à la plage", "tu aimerais parler français", "il aimerait savoir nager", etc
"Je finirais mon travail si j'avais des outils", "tu finirais ton dessin si tu avais le temps", etc.
You can often identify "conditionel" because is followed or preceeded by an expression using "si" (if), which is the condition itself.

The_FD

Watch out titiping!!

In french conditional tense is BEFORE "si", after comes an "imparfait"
re read your sample sentences

__________________
L'histoire de la famille Bourdillon
Les fêtes d'Hébé
The flying dancer dancing

MikeL

It's interesting that the use of the subjunctive, with or without que, to express a wish (actually a 3rd person imperative) is almost as limited in contemporary French as the equivalent is in modern English. We have a few set expressions containing a true subjunctive, such as "Long live the King" corresponding to "Vive le roi", but generally we use the modal auxiliary "may"
("May he have a long and happy life") or a structurally different phrase using "let" ("Let him rule his people wisely; let them rejoice") in which the "let" was presumably originally a simple imperative (addressed to an undefined 2nd person) with the full meaning of "allow", "permit". However this sense of "allow" has become much attenuated to the point that an expression like "let him rule" has exactly the same meaning and effect as "may he rule" i.e. it has become a 3rd person imperative. This use of "let" is still found in formal and literary English; however in modern colloquial English the same construction has reverted at least partly to the original sense of "allow", resulting in an expression which is a sort of hybrid between "May he..." and "Allow him to...", as when someone says "Just let him try".

Does this make sense? I don't know why I wrote this. It's late, my brain hurts, I'm going to bed...