Word
Ne nous salissons pas dans la forêt !
Meaning
Let's not get dirty in the forest!
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ne nous salissons pas dans la forêt !
dans
in, inside
ne
not (used before the verb)
pas
not (used after the verb)
la forêt
the forest
Questions & Answers about Ne nous salissons pas dans la forêt !
Why is the pronoun nous before the verb here?
Wait, shouldn't there be two nous here?
In French commands (the imperative mood), you always drop the subject pronoun. A regular statement is Nous ne nous salissons pas (We are not getting dirty), but for a command like "Let's not get dirty", you drop the first nous (the subject) and only keep the reflexive pronoun.
What is the infinitive of salissons and why does it have a double "s"?
Can salir be used without the reflexive pronoun?
Yes! Without the reflexive pronoun, salir means "to dirty" something. For example, Ne salis pas tes chaussures ! means "Don't dirty your shoes!". By making it reflexive (se salir), the meaning changes to "to get (oneself) dirty".