French · Chapter 14 · Lesson 4 · Grammar primer
Negation advanced
Prescribed by the AQA specification.
The short version
Ne... que is not a negative at all
Despite the ne, ne... que means only, and it restricts rather than negates. That is why the article survives it: je ne bois que de l'eau, not que d'eau. The que clamps onto whatever follows, so moving it moves the meaning: only vegetables versus only in the evening.
Je ne bois que de l'eau.
Where the negative lands in the passé composé
The second tier splits in two. The short adverb-like negatives tuck inside, between the auxiliary and the participle: je n'ai rien dit, je n'ai jamais vu. The noun-like ones trail the participle: je n'ai vu personne, je n'ai bu que de l'eau, je ne suis allé nulle part.
Je n'ai vu personne.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
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25-question session
One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end.
Lesson 4 of 13 in this chapter