hi
can someone please explain why " je suis desolée que tu es triste" is in indicative but
"je suis desolée que ton roman n'aie pas été publié en france "is in the subjunctive
i assume it is to do with negativity but the je suis desoléé hasn't changed
thanks
Bonjour Helen,
Normally, ‘être désolé que’ is followed by the subjunctive if the subject of the 2nd clause is not the same as in the main clause.
Je suis désolé que tu sois triste = I am sorry that you are sad
Je suis désolé que tu ne sois pas heureux = I am sorry that you are not happy
vs
Je suis désolé de t’avoir licencié = I am sorry that I made you redundant
Is it from one of our kwiz or exercises? If so, could you add the link to the related question/exercise please? It would make it easier to see if anything is amiss. Merci beaucoup.
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée!
thankyou that makes more sense
no it was from a couple of different online translators which both gave the same answers but i'm learning not to completely trust google translate etc
DeepL is probably more reliable than google (and at least gives some alternatives), but neither is great, and both often give literal and grammatically incorrect results in less common constructs. I also use wordreference for short phrases - it is reasonably good, especially for checking expressions.
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