Breakdown of Je voulais te parler à propos de ton travail.
parler
to speak
ton
your (ton, ta, tes)
vouloir
to want
le travail
the job
à propos de
about, concerning
Questions & Answers about Je voulais te parler à propos de ton travail.
Why use à propos de instead of just saying de ton travail?
Both are grammatically correct, but à propos de emphasizes the subject matter, similar to saying 'regarding' or 'on the subject of' rather than just 'about'. It adds a bit more weight to the topic you want to discuss.
Can I swap à propos de for quant à or en ce qui concerne in this sentence?
It would sound very unnatural here. While they all relate to bringing up a topic, quant à and en ce qui concerne are generally used to set the stage for a new subject, often at the beginning of a clause (like 'As for your work...'). Directly after a verb like parler, à propos de or just de is the standard choice.
Why is voulais in the imperfect tense rather than the passé composé?
The imperfect tense is often used with verbs like vouloir (to want) to soften a request or statement. Saying je voulais (I wanted / I was hoping) sounds much more polite and introductory than j'ai voulu, which can sound abrupt or imply that you wanted to do it in the past but didn't.
Why is the object pronoun te placed right before parler instead of before voulais?
When a sentence has a conjugated verb followed by an infinitive, the object pronoun almost always goes immediately before the infinitive it belongs to. Since the action being directed at 'you' is the talking, te must be placed directly before parler.
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