Learn French: Personne n'aurait survécu à la malédiction du pharaon. - Nobody would have survived the pharaoh's curse.

Personne n'aurait survécu à la malédiction du pharaon.

Nobody would have survived the pharaoh's curse.

Breakdown of Personne n'aurait survécu à la malédiction du pharaon.

avoir

to have

not (used before the verb)

at / to / in (general locations) / about (what one thinks about / reacts to)

of the / from the (masculine singular, with plural des)

Questions & Answers about Personne n'aurait survécu à la malédiction du pharaon.

The translation says "Nobody would have survived". Does this mean they would have survived if something else happened?

Not exactly! While it looks like a standard "if/then" conditional, here the past conditional (aurait survécu) is used to report an unconfirmed rumor or allegation. It implies "Allegedly, nobody survived" or "Rumor has it that nobody survived." This is a perfect example of the "conditionnel journalistique" (journalistic conditional).

Why is there an à after survécu? In English we just say "survived the curse".

Unlike English where "survive" takes a direct object, the French verb survivre requires the preposition à when you are surviving a situation, an illness, or outliving someone. So you must say survivre à la malédiction (literally "survive to the curse").

Why is it Personne n'aurait instead of Personne n'aurait pas?

Personne is a negative pronoun meaning "nobody" or "no one". When it acts as the subject of the sentence, it is paired with ne (or n' before a vowel), which completes the negation all by itself. Adding pas here would be grammatically incorrect.

Since la malédiction is feminine, shouldn't survécu have an extra "e" at the end?