Learn French: Tu as fait de jolies écharpes, mais tu les as quand même défaites. - You made pretty scarves, but you undid them anyway.

Tu as fait de jolies écharpes, mais tu les as quand même défaites.

You made pretty scarves, but you undid them anyway.

Breakdown of Tu as fait de jolies écharpes, mais tu les as quand même défaites.

you (informal singular)

mais

but

des

some (plural indefinite)

joli

pretty

Questions & Answers about Tu as fait de jolies écharpes, mais tu les as quand même défaites.

Where exactly does quand même go when using a compound tense like the passé composé?

It typically goes between the auxiliary verb (as) and the past participle (défaites). This is the standard position for short adverbs and common adverbial phrases in compound tenses.

Why is it de jolies écharpes instead of des jolies écharpes?

This is a classic rule to remember: when an adjective comes before a plural noun, the plural indefinite article des changes to de. Since the adjective jolies precedes the noun écharpes, we use de.

Why does the past participle défaites have an -es at the end?

Even though verbs conjugated with avoir usually don't agree with the subject, they do agree with a preceding direct object. Here, the direct object is les (referring to the feminine plural écharpes), which comes before the verb. Therefore, défait takes the feminine plural ending -es.

What is the infinitive of défaites and how is it conjugated?

The infinitive is défaire, meaning to undo or unmake. Because it is a compound of faire, it follows the exact same irregular conjugation pattern as faire.