Learn Hardcore French: De toute façon, ils m'écrivent souvent et me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul. - Anyway, they often write to me and remind me that I am not alone.

De toute façon, ils m'écrivent souvent et me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul.

Anyway, they often write to me and remind me that I am not alone.

Breakdown of De toute façon, ils m'écrivent souvent et me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul.

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Questions & Answers about De toute façon, ils m'écrivent souvent et me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul.

What exactly does de toute façon mean, and how is it different from other expressions like en tout cas or de toute manière?

De toute façon is a very common expression meaning roughly anyway, in any case, or either way.

Literal idea: in every case / in any event.
Use: It introduces something that is true regardless of what was said before, or it changes/relativizes what came just before.

Examples:

De toute façon, il est trop tard. → Anyway, it is too late.
De toute façon, ils m’écrivent souvent. → In any case, they write to me often.

Difference from similar expressions (in everyday speech, they are often interchangeable):

De toute façon: very common, slightly informal-neutral.
En tout cas: closer to in any case / at any rate, often used to add a personal comment: En tout cas, moi je pars.
De toute manière: very close to de toute façon, perhaps a bit more formal or literary, but you can usually swap them.

In most everyday contexts, you can treat de toute façon, en tout cas, and de toute manière as near-synonyms.

Why is it ils m’écrivent and not ils écrivent à moi like in English they write to me?

French strongly prefers object pronouns before the verb, rather than à + stressed pronoun in cases like this.

The verb écrire is écrire à quelqu’un (to write to someone).
When that à + quelqu’un is a pronoun, you normally use the weak pronoun form before the verb:
- Ils m’écrivent. = They write to me.
- Ils t’écrivent. = They write to you (informal).
- Ils lui écrivent. = They write to him/her.

Ils écrivent à moi is grammatically possible but sounds very emphatic or odd in most contexts, like stressing to me separately: They write to ME (as opposed to someone else). In normal speech, use ils m’écrivent.

Why is it m’écrivent with an apostrophe and not me écrivent?

The e in me is dropped (elision) before a verb that starts with a vowel or silent h, and replaced with an apostrophe:

me écrivent → m’écrivent
me écouter → m’écouter
me aider → m’aider

This happens with several pronouns and small words (like me, te, se, le, la, je, ne, que) to make pronunciation smoother. So m’écrivent is just the elided form of me écrivent.

Why is the verb écrivent and not something like écritent or écris?

Écrivent is the present tense, third person plural form of écrire for ils/elles:

j’écris – I write
tu écris – you write (singular)
il/elle/on écrit – he/she/one writes
nous écrivons – we write
vous écrivez – you write (plural/formal)
ils/elles écrivent – they write

The ending -ent is the regular written ending for ils/elles in the present tense for many verbs. Note:

The -ent is not pronounced in normal speech.
écrivent is pronounced the same as écrit: [é-kri].

So ils écrivent sounds like il écrit, but the spelling shows the plural ils.

Why is souvent placed after m’écrivent? Could it go somewhere else?

In French, frequency adverbs like souvent (often) most commonly go after the conjugated verb in simple tenses:

Ils m’écrivent souvent. → They often write to me.
Je mange souvent au restaurant. → I often eat at the restaurant.

Other possible positions:

You can put souvent at the beginning for emphasis:
- Souvent, ils m’écrivent. (More like: Often, they write to me.)
In compound tenses it often goes between the auxiliary and the past participle:
- Ils m’ont souvent écrit. → They have often written to me.

In this sentence, Ils m’écrivent souvent is the most neutral, natural word order.

What does ils me rappellent mean exactly, and how is rappeler constructed?

Here rappeler means to remind.

The structure is:

rappeler quelque chose à quelqu’un
- Literally: to recall something to someone, i.e. to remind someone of something.

When using pronouns:

Ils me rappellent que…
- me = to me
- que… introduces the thing they are reminding you of.

So ils me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul means they remind me that I am not alone.

Compare:

Je rappelle la date à Paul. → I remind Paul of the date.
Je la lui rappelle. → I remind him of it.
Ils me rappellent ce fait. → They remind me of this fact.
Ils me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul. → They remind me that I am not alone.

Why is it me rappellent and not rappellent moi?

French uses weak object pronouns before the verb, not after it, in statements:

Ils me rappellent. → They remind me.
Ils te rappellent. → They remind you.
Ils nous rappellent. → They remind us.

Forms like rappellent moi would be wrong in normal declarative sentences.

The only times you put these pronouns after the verb are:

In the imperative (command), and even then they change form:
- Rappelle-moi. → Remind me.
- Rappelez-moi. → Remind me (formal/plural).

So:

Statement: Ils me rappellent.
Command: Rappelle-moi.

What is the function of que in me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul?

Here que is a subordinating conjunction introducing a subordinate clause that acts as the object of rappellent.

Main clause: Ils me rappellent… → They remind me…
Subordinate clause: que je ne suis pas seul → that I am not alone.

Together: Ils me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul.
→ They remind me that I am not alone.

You cannot use qui here, because qui would be a subject relative pronoun (who/that in the person who…), not a conjunction. Here you need que.

How does the negation je ne suis pas work, and could you drop ne like in spoken French?

Standard written negation in French is ne … pas around the conjugated verb:

je suis → je ne suis pas → I am not
je parle → je ne parle pas → I do not speak

Structure:

ne goes before the verb
pas goes after the verb

In informal spoken French, many people drop the ne:

Je suis pas seul. (spoken, informal)
Il parle pas français. (spoken, informal)

But in correct written French, you should keep both:

Je ne suis pas seul.

So in your sentence, je ne suis pas seul is the standard, correct form.

Why is it seul and not seule? Does it depend on who is speaking?

Yes, seul / seule is an adjective that agrees with the gender (and number) of the person it describes.

Masculine singular: seul
Feminine singular: seule
Masculine plural: seuls
Feminine plural: seules

In the sentence:

je ne suis pas seul assumes the speaker is male (or grammatically masculine).
If the speaker is female, it should be je ne suis pas seule.

So you choose seul / seule based on the gender of “je”.

Why is there a comma after De toute façon?

De toute façon is functioning as a sentence adverb or introductory phrase, similar to Anyway, … in English.

It sets the tone or context for what follows.
In written French, such introductory phrases are usually followed by a comma:
- Alors, je suis parti.
- En fait, il avait raison.
- De toute façon, ils m’écrivent souvent.

You could see sentences without the comma in very informal writing, but the comma is standard and helps readability.

Could you say je ne suis seul without pas, or would that mean something else?

Je ne suis seul by itself is incorrect or at least incomplete in standard French. Negation normally needs ne … pas together.

However, ne can combine with other negative words instead of pas, such as plus, jamais, rien, personne, que, etc.:

Je ne suis plus seul. → I am no longer alone.
Je ne suis jamais seul. → I am never alone.
Je ne suis seul que le soir. → I am only alone in the evening.
(Here ne … que means only, not a true negation.)

But ne by itself without one of these words is not used in modern French (except in some literary or archaic styles). So to say I am not alone, you must say:

Je ne suis pas seul / seule.

Why is the subject pronoun ils used, and not eux?

Ils and eux are both forms of they / them, but they have different grammatical roles:

ils is the subject pronoun (like they before a verb):
- Ils m’écrivent. → They write to me.
- Ils arrivent demain. → They arrive tomorrow.
eux is a stressed/disjunctive pronoun, used:
- after prepositions: avec eux, pour eux
- for emphasis or contrast: Eux, ils m’écrivent souvent. → They, they write to me often.
- alone as an answer: Qui vient ? — Eux.

So in Ils m’écrivent, you need the subject form ils, not eux.

Does ils m’écrivent souvent et me rappellent… mean they do both actions equally, or could it be understood some other way?

The coordination with et simply links two actions with the same subject:

Ils m’écrivent souvent → They often write to me.
(Ils) me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul. → (They) remind me that I am not alone.

Together: Ils m’écrivent souvent et me rappellent que je ne suis pas seul.

This normally implies:

The same “they” do both actions.
Writing often and reminding you are both typical, repeated behaviors.

If you wanted to emphasize that the reminding happens specifically when they write, you could say:

Ils m’écrivent souvent pour me rappeler que je ne suis pas seul.
→ They often write to me to remind me that I am not alone.

But the original sentence is naturally understood as: they often write to you, and among other things, they remind you that you are not alone.