Breakdown of Nous souhaitions y apporter une modification.
un
a / an (masculine)
nous
we / us (object pronoun)
apporter
to bring (to a place)
y
there (pronoun) / to it
souhaiter
to wish
la modification
the modification
Questions & Answers about Nous souhaitions y apporter une modification.
Does souhaitions mean this is a past action, since the translation says 'We wished'?
Even though it translates to a past tense, in French this is actually a present request! This is the imperfect of politeness. Using the imperfect softens the request so it sounds less demanding than the present tense (nous souhaitons). It works just like saying "We were hoping to..." in English to ask for something right now.
What does the pronoun y do here, and why is it placed before apporter?
The pronoun y replaces a phrase starting with à, meaning "to it" in this context (such as a document or a contract). Object pronouns go directly before the verb they belong to—in this case, the infinitive apporter, not the conjugated verb souhaitions. The underlying phrase is apporter une modification à something.
Why use apporter instead of faire to say we are making a change?
Could we use the conditional nous souhaiterions instead of the imperfect nous souhaitions?
Yes! Both the conditional (nous souhaiterions) and the imperfect of politeness (nous souhaitions) are used to soften requests. The imperfect is very common in everyday spoken French to sound friendly yet polite, whereas the conditional can sound slightly more formal.
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