Breakdown of Un mythe ne se lit pas, il se vit !
un
a / an (masculine)
il
he
ne
not (used before the verb)
pas
not (used after the verb)
lire
to read
se
himself, herself, themselves (reflexive)
vivre
to live, to experience
le mythe
the myth
Questions & Answers about Un mythe ne se lit pas, il se vit !
Why do we use the reflexive pronoun se with verbs like lire and vivre here?
This is called the pronominal passive. In French, when an inanimate object (like un mythe) is the subject of an action but isn't actually doing the action, we often use a reflexive verb instead of the standard passive voice. So se lit translates to "is read" rather than "reads itself", and se vit means "is lived".
What verb does vit come from?
It comes from vivre (to live). Because it's short, it is easily confused with verbs like voir (to see, which becomes voit) or the past tense of other verbs, but in the present tense, the il/elle/on form of vivre is just vit.
Why does the second half of the sentence use il instead of ça?
Where do the negation words ne and pas go when using this passive structure?
Exactly where they go with standard reflexive verbs! The ne and pas wrap around the reflexive pronoun and the conjugated verb as a single package. So it becomes ne se lit pas (is not read), keeping se and lit tightly linked together.
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