Breakdown of Sauvegarde ton travail de peur qu'une erreur ne l'efface totalement.
un
a / an (masculine)
l'erreur
the mistake, an error (f)
ton
your (ton, ta, tes)
le travail
the job
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
effacer
to erase
de peur que
for fear that
ne
expletive 'ne' (no negative meaning)
totalement
totally
sauvegarder
to back up (data)
Questions & Answers about Sauvegarde ton travail de peur qu'une erreur ne l'efface totalement.
Why is there a ne before l'efface? Does it mean the error won't erase it?
No, this is the ne explétif! It doesn't make the sentence negative. It is a formal element used after certain conjunctions expressing fear, warning, or prevention, like de peur que (for fear that) or crainte que. It is completely untranslated in English.
Is efface in the present indicative or the subjunctive here?
It is in the subjunctive mood. Even though the present indicative and present subjunctive forms of effacer look identical for the il/elle/on form (which matches une erreur), the conjunction de peur que always requires the subjunctive because it expresses a feared, hypothetical outcome rather than a definite fact.
Since the sentence uses ton (your), shouldn't the first word be sauvegardes with an 's'?
This is a command, which means it uses the imperative mood. As a quick refresher: for regular -er verbs like sauvegarder, the tu form drops its final 's' in the imperative. So tu sauvegardes simply becomes sauvegarde.
What if the subject of the fear was the same as the main sentence, like 'Back up your work for fear of erasing it'?
If the person doing the action is the same in both halves of the sentence, you don't use de peur que. Instead, you use de peur de followed by an infinitive verb: Sauvegarde ton travail de peur de l'effacer totalement. Notice that the ne explétif is not used with this infinitive structure.
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