Word order of jamais " ever "

CrystalMaidenC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Word order of jamais " ever "

Whenever I have jamais as in ever after a verb (like in, " que tu aies jamais eue! " the French spellcheck tries to correct it to add a ne to make jamais mean never. So I thought you had to put jamais right after the subject pronoun (" si jamais je le trouve. ") This isn't the case here, though, so that's confusing.
Asked 5 years ago
GruffKwiziq team memberCorrect answer

Grammar checkers are, unfortunately, still very unreliable. You can't trust them I'm afraid. The same goes for software translation. They're getting better every year but don't rely on them to learn grammar!

More info here:
https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/french-grammar-checkers

CrystalMaidenC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

So was I right or not? Do you put " ever " before the verb? You're ignoring my question.

Also, grammar checkers have done a LOT to help me do stuff like remember which genders words are and to make adjectives agree in gender with the nouns right and sometimes they correct the tense for me and all that other stuff, so you're not giving them enough credit for beginners here.

GruffKwiziq team member

So long as you cross check whatever the grammar checker is telling you and don't just trust that it's true, they can be useful. The issue is people assuming they're "authoritative" sources when in reality they're often completely wrong or misleading.

You're right though, I did forget to answer the actual question. :)

Jamais meaning "ever" can go in various places in sentences.

"Si jamais..." (If ever...) is a very common expression. You could also say "Si je jamais..." but it's much less common.

Other useful expression:

"... que jamais" (...than ever) after a comparative.

"...à jamais" (... for ever)

"...à tout jamais" (for ever and ever).

Hope that helps.

CrystalMaidenC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
Thank you. Cross-checking every single time ever when the grammar checker underlines something sounds really annoying, though. It mostly underlines mistakes I made that I didn't notice that I knew better to not do like not agreeing in gender and number or it tells me what's the Imperfect Subjunctive when I'm completely at a loss. I say it's about as useful as the English grammar checker, at the very least.

Word order of jamais " ever "

Whenever I have jamais as in ever after a verb (like in, " que tu aies jamais eue! " the French spellcheck tries to correct it to add a ne to make jamais mean never. So I thought you had to put jamais right after the subject pronoun (" si jamais je le trouve. ") This isn't the case here, though, so that's confusing.

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