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Negation & Questions

Other negations: ne...jamais, ne...plus, ne...rien

Intermediate

Beyond ne...pas, French has several other two-part negations that follow the same wrap-around pattern but change the meaning: ne...jamais (never), ne...plus (no longer/no more), and ne...rien (nothing). Je ne fume jamais (I never smoke), elle ne travaille plus ici (she no longer works here), il ne mange rien (he eats nothing).

All of these behave like ne...pas grammaticallyne goes before the conjugated verb, and the second word goes right after it (or after the auxiliary in a compound tense): je n'ai jamais visité Paris (I have never visited Paris). As with ne...pas, ne is often dropped in casual speech, leaving jamais, plus, or rien to carry the whole negation alone.