Breakdown of J'interdis au garçon de faire un caprice.
je
I
un
a / an (masculine)
le garçon
the boy
au
to the / at the (masculine singular)
faire
to do, to make
interdire
to forbid
de
to (introducing an infinitive after a verb)
le caprice
the tantrum
Questions & Answers about J'interdis au garçon de faire un caprice.
Why do we use de before faire?
This sentence uses reported speech to express an indirect command. When you report a command using verbs like interdire (to forbid), dire (to tell), or demander (to ask), you connect the person to the action using de followed by an infinitive verb.
Why does the sentence say au garçon instead of just le garçon?
The verb interdire takes an indirect object for the person, meaning it requires the preposition à. The full structure is interdire à quelqu'un de faire quelque chose (to forbid someone from doing something). Since the preposition à and the masculine article le always contract in French, they combine to form au.
Is faire un caprice the standard way to say "throw a tantrum"?
If this is an indirect command, what would the original direct command be?
If you were speaking directly to the boy, you would use the negative imperative form: Ne fais pas de caprice ! (Don't throw a tantrum!). By using interdire ... de faire, we report that same negative command indirectly without needing the ne ... pas structure.
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