Breakdown of Je lis chaque commentaire et je mets à jour les fichiers si nécessaire.
Questions & Answers about Je lis chaque commentaire et je mets à jour les fichiers si nécessaire.
In French, just like in English, the verb must be conjugated to match the subject.
- lire = to read (infinitive, the base form)
- je lis = I read (present tense, 1st person singular)
So:
- Je lis = I read / I am reading
- Saying je lire would be like saying I to read in English – it’s ungrammatical.
You always need the conjugated form after a subject pronoun like je, tu, il, etc.
You can drop the second je in casual spoken French:
- Je lis chaque commentaire et mets à jour les fichiers si nécessaire.
This is not wrong, but:
- Repeating je (je lis … et je mets à jour …) is clearer and more natural in careful, standard French.
- In writing, especially formal or neutral writing, French tends to repeat the subject pronoun more than English would.
So the version with je repeated is stylistically safer and sounds very natural.
Both are possible, but they don’t feel exactly the same:
- chaque commentaire = each comment, every single comment one by one
- Focuses on individual items.
- tous les commentaires = all the comments (as a group)
- Focuses on the whole set as a total.
In many contexts, they overlap and either would be understood as “I read all the comments.”
However, chaque commentaire emphasizes that no comment is skipped, and each one is handled individually. That nuance fits well with the idea of carefully reading and updating files as needed.
In French, chaque (each/every) is used without another article in front of it:
- chaque commentaire (not le chaque commentaire)
- chaque jour (not le chaque jour)
- chaque personne (not la chaque personne)
Chaque itself plays the role that an article would play, so you don’t add un/une/le/la before it.
Mettre à jour is a fixed expression that means to update (in the sense of updating files, software, information, etc.).
Literally, it’s something like:
- mettre = to put
- à jour = to up to date / to day (literally “to day,” i.e. to the current day)
So mettre à jour ≈ to put up to date, which corresponds to to update.
French often uses multi-word expressions where English uses a single verb. You can’t normally replace mettre à jour here with another single verb like actualiser without slightly changing the register or nuance. Mettre à jour is the standard, very common choice for “update (files, data, software).”
As with lire, the verb mettre (to put) must be conjugated:
- mettre = to put (infinitive)
- je mets = I put (present tense, 1st person singular)
It’s irregular, so you get:
- je mets
- tu mets
- il/elle/on met
- nous mettons
- vous mettez
- ils/elles mettent
So je mets à jour = I update / I am updating.
Les fichiers uses the definite article (les = the), which suggests we’re talking about a specific, known set of files, probably already clear from context, e.g.:
- the files of this project
- the files I’m responsible for
- the files mentioned earlier in the conversation
You could say:
- je mets à jour des fichiers = I update files (some files, not specified which)
- je mets à jour mes fichiers = I update my files
But les fichiers implies “the files we both know about / that are relevant here,” which is a typical choice when writing about a specific task or responsibility.
Si nécessaire means if necessary or if needed. It’s a short conditional phrase:
- si = if
- nécessaire = necessary
Placing it at the end is very natural French word order:
- Je mets à jour les fichiers si nécessaire.
= I update the files if necessary.
You could move it, but most other positions would sound awkward or marked. The default place for such a short condition is after the main clause, just like in English: “I update the files if necessary.”
Here, nécessaire is used in a kind of fixed expression si nécessaire, which functions adverbially (a bit like “if needed”). It doesn’t directly agree with a specific noun.
- We’re not saying “if the files are necessary.”
- We’re saying “if it is necessary (to update them).”
Because the implied it / that isn’t expressed and the phrase is used in an adverb-like way, nécessaire typically stays in the singular masculine form in this expression.
So si nécessaire is the normal, idiomatic form.
Commentaire is masculine:
- un commentaire
- le commentaire
- chaque commentaire (no visible gender marking here, because chaque doesn’t change form)
There isn’t a reliable rule to guess the gender from the ending -aire (there are both masculine and feminine nouns with that ending), so this is something you need to learn with the word. Dictionaries will mark it as nm (nom masculin).
Yes. In this sentence, je lis and je mets à jour are both present tense, and in French:
- The present tense can mean what is happening now.
- It can also describe a habitual or regular action.
So Je lis chaque commentaire et je mets à jour les fichiers si nécessaire can naturally mean:
- I read every comment and (whenever that happens) I update the files if necessary.
This is very similar to English using the simple present for habits: “I read every comment and update the files if necessary.”