Expressing 'myself, etc...' with stress pronouns and 'même'

In my understanding, adding -même emphasises the "self" aspect even more.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Come to think of it, there are cases where you need to add -même:

Il a fait ça lui-même. -- He did it himself.

You couldn't say this sentence without the -même.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

nous les avons préparés. Why not préparé? i thought past participle did not change to match subject when avoir is auxiliary.

Hi Damien,

you are correct in that the past participle does not match the COD in the case of avoir

BUT (and there always is a but!)

except for the case when the COD precedes the particple, in which case it IS matched. Let's look at your example:

Nous les avons préparés. --"les" is the COD and precedes the participle ("préparés"). Since "les" is plural (and apparently not all female), the participle needs to take this into account --> "preparés".

-- Chris (not a anative speaker).

thanks Chris, very interesting. By the way, what does COD stand for? i would have called "les" a direct object pronoun. 

COD = Complément d'objet direct.

Yes, "direct object pronoun" is exactly what COD means.

-- Chris.

Bonjour Damien and Chris !

Here is the link to our lesson on past participle agreement with the direct object pronoun with auxiliary avoir :

https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/revision/grammar/special-cases-when-the-past-participle-agrees-in-number-and-gender-when-used-with-avoir-in-le-passe-compose-conversational-past

Bonne journée ! 

No, you need "même".

Moi-même
Toi-même
Lui-même/elle-même
Nous-mêmes
Vous-même/vous-mêmes
Ils-mêmes/elles-mêmes

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Sorry, a mistake: it is, of course, eux-mêmes and NOT ils-mêmes, because you need the stress pronoun.

Sorry for that, -- Chris.

I’m lost as to how this means You can only blame yourself. I get the Tu ne peux ....que part, meaning You can only, but can you help me with the t’en prendre part? Thanks!

Hi Rod, the expression "s'en prendre à [quelqu'un]" is actually quite close in structure and sense as "to take it out on " but it can also mean to blame someone. Hope that helps!

Yes it does. Thanks Gruff!

Merci Gruff pour votre réponse. I have not seen this locution previously. The words/phrases that I learned are:
reprocher
être responsable, i.e. tu es responsable. . .
attribuer à quelqu'un la responsabilité de qch
Is the phrase «s'en prendre à» an idiomatique phrase?
Bonne journée

Rod/Ron: J'ai eu le même question moi-même. Je pense qu'on pourrait écrire Je ne peux m'en prendre à moi-même. J'aimerais aussi savoir que la phrase soit une phrase idiomatique. C'est très interessante.

Just to complement the answer:

French is a pretty idiomatic language, meaning that it relies heavily on the specific meaning of idioms. Of those there are many using "en". You can't literally translate them. Just learn them by heart and start using them. You'll see they work very nicely in everyday speech.

J'en ai marre = I am sick of it.
Tu m'en veux = You are mad at me.
Il s'en va = He is leaving.
Je m'en fiche = I don't care.

There are many more (also using "y"), of which your example is only one among many.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Bonjour Janice,

The French pronoun soi is for impersonal constructions, so you use it with another impersonal word such as on.

For example, On doit le faire soi-même = One has to do it oneself

Compare that to Tu dois le faire toi-même = You have to do it yourself.