The French negation is always a compound construction with the negative particle ne and an a supplement. This construction will be a stable one, even though at the beginning it might feel a bit strange.
Examples
declarative sentence
negative sentence
Je veux.
Je ne
veux pas.
I want.
I do not want.
Je sais.
Je ne
sais pas.
I know.
I do not know.
Je vais.
Je ne
vais pas.
I go.
I do not go.
We see the simple French negation of a declarative clause is formed with ne...pas, with the verb in the middle of ne and pas. When thinking about the verbs, we remember that there may be several verbs in a clause, some conjugated or just the infinitive. The basic rule where to put the
ne and pas is simple: it is always the first conjugated verb that is enclosed by ne and pas.There are only few exceptions, which we discuss later.
