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French Grammar Guidebook
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To Know
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(45th of 46) |
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Connaître means to know someone, be familiar with a place or with some bit of news. It is conjugated as follows: CONNAÎTRE"to know, be familiar with"
Command forms: connais!, connaissez! Future stem: connaîtr- Participle: connu EXAMPLES
Connaître is used ONLY with direct objectsnever with another verb or a phrase. Another verb that is conjugated like connaître is reconnaître"to recognize." You now know two verbs that in English both mean "to know," but that have very different uses in French: Connaître is used to refer to acquaintance (with a person, a city, factoids), whereas savoir refers to knowledge of facts and information, and to acquired skills. Consider the following examples:
This last example could also be translated as: I can't program. English does not necessarily distinguish between being able to perform a certain task because one has learned how to do it or because circumstances allow it. Consider the following examples:
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Examples of To Know
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