Source: http://www.madbeppo.com/courses/chapter-07-french-for-reading-knowledge/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 18:44:03+00:00

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The Author here lists verbs, the infinitives of which go through some slight changes when they are used as the future-conditional stem. For the most part, some trace of the original infinitive form still remains, so it is easy enough to learn these new ones. It is not difficult to see why they changed as they did, if you keep in mind a few standard sound changes.
Vowels can change in a variety of ways, particularly as a result of whether they are accented or not.
Consonants can go through various transformations, which serve to facilitate pronunciation.
so that the v ends up against the r. A v in this position can “turn into” a vowel, namely u; that’s how you get aur-.
To ease getting form the n to the r (both dental consonants), a d was added.
For ease of getting from the l to the r, the d was added; subsequently, the l (like the v in the case of avoir) turned into the vowel u.
Nevertheless, in *all* cases, the future-conditional stem ends in an -r-, and that –r– is, one way another, the r of the (or at least an) infinitive ending. To be sure, you need to be able to recognize these forms without hesitation.
In this section the Author slips in the passé simple (which he calls the passé défini) without saying anything about it. For a real introduction, he waits until Chapter 12 page 116-18, §66.
If you prefer not to wait till then, go to The Simple Past.
nous parlons > nous parlons > parl- + -ais, etc.
nous finissons > nous finissons > finiss + -ais, etc.
nous rendons > nous rendons > rend- + ais, etc.
nous avons > nous avons > av- + -ais, etc.
nous faisons > nous faisons > fais- + -ais, etc.
nous prenons > nous prenons > pren- + ais, etc.
—except for the verb être; the base of the imperfect of this verb is ét-.
perfect aspect, in which case you use the passé composé or the passé simple.
Le président était triste parce que sa vie était menacée.
Le président a été (fut) assassiné à 2H de l’après-midi.
In general, passé composé or passé simple indicate a completed action or state, and most often will be translated in English with our “simple past” or preterite.
The French imperfect always indicates an action or state that is not envisaged as finished; but it covers a number of situations, which will be variously translated in English.
Je faisais toujours mes devoirs avant 8 heures du soir.
For additional materials on the imperfect, see Aspects of French Past Tenses, To & Fro Between English & French Past Tenses, and Temporal Expressions & Their Tenses.
You should aim at being able to recognize any of the forms of avoir without difficulty.
The idioms listed on page 68 are all worth committing to memory.
avoir l’air + adjective = “to look (adjective), to seem (adjective)”; literally, “to have the (adjective) air.” This construction is quite standard, and you want to be familiar with it. The word air is masculine, but the entire phrase can be interpreted as a copulative and the adjective made to agree with the subject, rather than with l’air. The construction can also be followed with an infinitive phrase.
For more such phrases (with avoir and other verbs), see the Language File Verb-Noun Phrases.
In these exercises I generally translate an action verb in the imperfect as a past progressive (“so-and-so was doing something”). In practice, the past progressive will not always be the best way to translate this tense.
Since he has presented avoir in this chapter, and avoir is used in compound tenses, the Author now begins giving you verbs in various compound tenses in this exercise, even though he does not introduce these tenses formally until Chapter 8. To see the line-up, go to §48.D, page 78, or consult the French Language file Compound Past.
d. This event doesn’t happen often. Several cars arrived.
c. They will be found (find themselves) in front of a château. / The book is on the table.
c. they will be able to complete / they will do the experiment / I will come to see the physicist.
12. The boys dreamed (=used to dream? =were dreaming?) of the use they would make of the money they had found.
13. Jacques would buy a lovely sports car; he would take a trip to Switzerland and to Italy.
14. If he had made enough money, he would have bought a house near the center.
Sentence 14 is what I call a “Conditional Sentence of the Third Kind,” with a verb in the pluperfect indicative (avait gagné) and a verb in the past conditional (aurait acheté). You can read more about them here and here.
15. In the 17th-century France was keeping up (OR “on a level”) with, if not at the head of, the scientific movement.
17. For Descartes as for Newton, the problem of the physical universe was a problem of mechanics, and Descartes would be the first to teach,3 if not the solution, at least the true nature of the problem.
A conditional sentence “of the second kind” (with a verb in the imperfect indicative and a verb in the present conditional). The same goes for sentence 23 below.
20. Once upon a time there was a king who was superstitious but (who) didn’t want to admit it.
21. The astrologer claimed to know what would happen in the future.
22. In this work, we will use (take) the term “information science” in a limited and well defined sense.
23. If this theory of radioactivity were general (=generally true? generally applicable?), one would have to admit that bodies give off radiation.
24. The last thing one finds (discovers, learns) in writing a work, is to know (to learn) what one must put first. Better: The last thing one learns in writing a work is what to put first.
25. If all human beans knew what they say of each other,4 there would not be four friends in the world.
26. Normally my letters are not so long. The short time I had (at my disposal) was the reason for it (=en=de cela). I made this letter so long only because I didn’t have the leisure to make it shorter.
The work this passage is taken from, Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire, which Rousseau was working on when he died, is one of the best appreciated.
 Of all the habitations where I have dwelt, none has made me so truly happy as the Isle of St-Pierre in the middle of the Lake of Bienne.  This little island, which at Neuchastel they call the “Isle of La Motte,” is very little known, even in Switzerland.  No traveller, that I know of, mentions it. And yet it is very pleasant, and singularly (well) situated for the happiness of someone who loves withdrawal.
 m’a rendu – For various meanings of this verb, see the French Language topic rendre.
 bien peu connu – On the meanings of the adverb bien, see the Language File Bien, the Many Us of. On peu, review my comments on Chapter 02 §16. Expressions of Quantity.
 The banks of the lake of Bienne are wilder and more romantic than those of Lake Geneva, because the rocks and woods border the water more closely there;  but they are no less agreeable.  If there are fewer cultivated fields and vineyards, fewer towns and houses, there is also more natural greenness, more prairies and more woody retreats, more frequent contrasts and more changes of outlook.  Since there are no main roads convenient for carriages on these happy banks, the countryside is not much frequented by travelers;  but it is interesting for solitary contemplatives who like to drink deeply of the charms of nature, and to recollect themselves in a silence troubled by no other sound than the cry of eagles, the intermittent song of a few birds, and the rumble of torrents descending from the mountains. [See following note!]  This lovely, nearly round basin encloses in its midst two small islands, one inhabited and cultivated; the other (yet) smaller, unpeopled, and (lying) fallow.  Adapted from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Reveries of a Solitary Walker, 5th Walk.
 Si – This is what I call the “Concessive If,” that is, an “if” that = “although.” See the French Language topic French Concessions. Part II. Concessive Si.
que ne trouble aucun bruit, etc.
–except that the subject bruit has a whole lot more joined to it: que le cri des aigles, etc., etc.
Hence, to keep things in their same relative positions, a solution is to make the voice of the verb passive, so that the “subject” (now a prepositional phrase) can stay at the end.
Another case of inversion occurs in sentence  of Le Système solaire (below).
The Author will eventually discuss this type of inversion (Chapter 10 §54C), and I examine it in the Language File Que, Etc., and Inversion.
 The earth we inhabit is part of a system of bodies called planets, which turn around a star we call the sun.  The sun possesses at least nine planets; it occupies approximately the center of the system.  There are moreover numerous comets and planetary satellites that are part of the solar system.
 The earth is the third of the planets in the order of the distances that separate them from the sun.  It is a more or less spherical globe, whose circumference is 40,000 kilometers and whose average diameter is 12,432 kilometers.  It turns on itself in 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds, and around the sun in 365 1/4 days, or one year.  The diameter around which the daily revolution takes place is called the axis, the extremities of which are the poles.  The earth is slightly flattened at the poles.
See also:  La distance moyenne du soleil à la terre est d‘environ 150 de kilomètres.
 The annual revolution takes place along a plane curve; it is in fact an ellipse that the earth describes as it turns around the sun.  The earth’s axis is inclined (in a variable way) by about 23° 27’ 37” to the axis of the ecliptic.  The average distance between the earth and the sun is about 150 million kilometers.
 In addition to the planets there are satellites that turn around a principal planet.  Thus the earth is accompanied, as it travels about its orbit, by the moon, which turns around the earth and around itself.  The moon is 50 times smaller than the earth, which it circles at a distance of 384,000 kilometers [from which it is separated by 384K kilometers].  Jupiter, the sun’s largest planet, has twelve satellites; Saturn has seventeen, and three rings in addition; Uranus possesses four satellites.
 Saturne en a dix-sept – “Saturn has seventeen of them,” i.e., Saturn has seventeen satellites. The Author lets the pronominal adverb en slip by once again, this time without glossing it. He will at last discuss it in Chapter 11 §62. If you can’t wait to learn about it, you can read my commentary.
 Numberless comets also move around the sun.  They differ essentially from the planets in that they travel through space in all directions, following orbits that are very elongated, and in that they are accompanied by a train of light called the tail or hair.  There are comets that disappear and return periodically, like the famous Halley’s Comet as it is called, which reappears every 76 years.
 There was once a king who was superstitious, but who didn’t want to admit it.  He learned that a certain man in his realm claimed that he could read the future in the stars and predict what was going to happen.
 The king considered himself very clever and he became angry at this astrologer who did what he, the king, was unable to do.  He had him come to the royal palace, having resolved to put him to death and, at the same time, to show his courtiers that his claims were false.
 lui – The emphatic, or stress, or tonic, or disjunctive, pronoun for “he/him,” used when the personal pronoun is separated from the verb and thus receives unwonted emphasis. If you wish, you can look at my commentary on Chapter 15 §79.
 le fit venir – It is the causal faire, which we have already encountered, and which you can read up on, if you must, here: Faire causatif.
 pauvre – Review, if you need to, the French Language topic Short Adjective Pauvre.
 qui venait d’entrer – You can read up on this construction with the verb venir here: Recent Past, and here: The Recent Past Takes a Step Back.
 ce qui va arriver – Indefinite relative pronoun again (“that which” = “what”); again in  ce que. Also: the Near Future construction. See the topic Near Future.
 The two soldiers waited in vain for the signal.  The king changed his mind very quickly and, instead of killing the astrologer, he begged him to stay in the palace, to take care of himself, and not to risk any danger.  It was necessary to take the greatest care of a life so precious.

References: §66
 §48
 §16
 §54
 §62
 §79