Breakdown of Quant au disque dur, il a failli le supprimer irréversiblement.
il
he
avoir
to have
au
to the / at the (masculine singular)
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
supprimer
to delete
quant à
as for
faillir
to almost (do)
le disque dur
the hard drive
irréversiblement
irreversibly
Questions & Answers about Quant au disque dur, il a failli le supprimer irréversiblement.
How does il a failli le supprimer translate to 'he almost deleted it'?
The verb faillir conjugated in the passé composé (a failli) and followed by an infinitive (supprimer) is the standard French way to say you 'almost' did something. It describes a 'near miss' action that was on the verge of happening but ultimately did not.
Why is the object pronoun le placed before supprimer instead of earlier in the sentence?
When a conjugated verb is followed by an infinitive, object pronouns belong directly in front of the infinitive they modify. Here, the pronoun le (referring to the hard drive) goes right before supprimer because 'delete' is the action being done to it.
Why is it spelled Quant au instead of Quand au?
Why is supprimer translated as 'deleted' rather than 'suppressed'?
Supprimer is a classic false friend for English speakers. While it looks like 'suppress', it actually means 'to delete', 'to remove', or 'to eliminate'. If you want to translate 'to suppress' (like an emotion or a riot), you would use a verb like réprimer or étouffer.
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