Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal.

The children do not want to hurt themselves.

Breakdown of Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal.

• ne ... pas: not
• vouloir: to want
• l'enfant: the child
• le mal: the pain
• se faire: to be done

Questions & Answers about Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal.

What does se faire mal literally mean, and why don’t we translate it literally?

Literally, se faire mal is:

• se = oneself / themselves (reflexive pronoun)
• faire = to make / to do
• mal = pain / hurt

So the literal idea is “to make oneself pain” or “to do oneself hurt.”

In normal English, though, we don’t say it that way. We simply say:

• “to hurt oneself”
• “to get hurt”

So Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal is best translated as:

• “The children don’t want to hurt themselves / don’t want to get hurt.”

The literal structure helps you understand the grammar, but you should remember the natural English equivalent, not try to translate each word mechanically.

Why do we use se faire mal instead of se blesser?

Both can often be translated by “to hurt oneself”, but there is a nuance:

• se faire mal

  • Very common in everyday speech
  • Focuses on the pain or the fact of getting hurt, often not very serious
  • Example: Fais attention, tu vas te faire mal ! = Be careful, you’re going to hurt yourself!

• se blesser

  • Means to injure oneself
  • More neutral/formal, slightly more “medical” sounding, often suggests an actual injury (cut, sprain, etc.)
  • Example: Il s’est blessé au genou. = He injured his knee.

In your sentence, Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal sounds natural and everyday: the children just don’t want to end up hurting themselves (even slightly).
You could say Les enfants ne veulent pas se blesser, but it sounds a bit more like “don’t want to injure themselves,” slightly heavier in tone.

What exactly does se refer to here? Why is it se and not les or eux?

se is the 3rd person reflexive pronoun. It means that the subject acts on itself.

• Subject: Les enfants (they)
• Reflexive pronoun: se (themselves)
• Verb phrase: se faire mal (to hurt themselves)

So:

• Les enfants se font mal. = The children hurt themselves.
• Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal. = The children do not want to hurt themselves.

Why not les or eux?

• les is a direct object pronoun, “them” (someone else is acting on them):
  
  • Je les fais rire. = I make them laugh.
• eux is a stressed pronoun used for emphasis or after prepositions:
  
  • Je parle avec eux. = I’m talking with them.

Here the children are both the subject and the ones who get hurt, so we use the reflexive form se, not les or eux.

Note: se is the same for singular and plural third person:

• Il ne veut pas se faire mal. = He doesn’t want to hurt himself.
• Ils ne veulent pas se faire mal. = They don’t want to hurt themselves.

Why is the negation ne … pas around veulent and not directly around se faire mal?

In simple tenses, ne goes before the conjugated verb, and pas comes after it:

• Les enfants ne veulent pas …

Here, veulent is the conjugated verb (vouloir, to want).
The infinitive se faire mal is just what they (don’t) want to do.

So the structure is:

• Les enfants (subject)
• ne veulent pas (negated verb “don’t want”)
• se faire mal (to hurt themselves)

Grammatically, we are negating vouloir:
Les enfants ne veulent pas… = The children do not want…

But in meaning, English often understands this as:

• The children don’t want to get hurt / don’t want to end up hurting themselves.

You cannot say:

• ✗ Les enfants veulent ne pas se faire mal.

That sounds very awkward or wrong in French. The normal way is exactly your sentence:

• Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal.

Where do we put se in a sentence like this? Could we say Les enfants ne se veulent pas faire mal?

You cannot say Les enfants ne se veulent pas faire mal — that is incorrect.

Rule to remember with conjugated verb + infinitive + pronoun:

• Object/reflexive pronouns go right before the infinitive, not the conjugated verb.

So:

• Subject + conjugated verb + (ne … pas) + pronoun + infinitive

Examples:

• Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal.
• Je vais me coucher. = I’m going to go to bed.
• Nous pouvons nous reposer. = We can rest.

Wrong patterns:

• ✗ Les enfants ne se veulent pas faire mal.
• ✗ Je me vais coucher.

Correct pattern in your sentence:

• ne veulent pas se faire mal
  (negation around veulent, se placed just before faire)

Is mal here an adjective, an adverb, or a noun?

In se faire mal, mal functions like a noun meaning “pain / harm / hurt.”

• Historically: (du) mal = (some) pain/harm
• With faire, it forms a fixed expression: faire mal (à) = to hurt (someone)

So:

• se faire mal = to cause oneself pain / to hurt oneself
• faire mal à quelqu’un = to hurt someone

You don’t see an article (le mal, du mal) in this set phrase, but grammatically it’s the same word mal used as a masculine noun.

Compare:

• avoir mal
  • body part = to be in pain somewhere
    
    • J’ai mal à la tête. = My head hurts / I have a headache.

There mal is also a noun: literally I have (some) pain in the head.

Can you drop ne and just say Les enfants veulent pas se faire mal in spoken French?

Yes, in informal spoken French, it’s very common to drop ne:

• Les enfants veulent pas se faire mal.

This is grammatically “incorrect” in formal writing, but perfectly normal in conversation.

Register:

• Formal / written:
  
  • Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal.
• Casual / spoken:
  
  • Les enfants veulent pas se faire mal.

Don’t drop pas, though; ne is the part that usually disappears in speech, not pas.

What’s the difference between se faire mal, faire mal à quelqu’un, and avoir mal?

These three are easy to mix up:

1. se faire mal = to hurt oneself / to get hurt

   • Reflexive: subject hurts itself.
   • Il s’est fait mal au bras. = He hurt his arm.

2. faire mal à quelqu’un = to hurt someone (cause them pain)

   • Someone causes pain to someone else.
   • Tu me fais mal. = You’re hurting me.
   • Ne me fais pas mal ! = Don’t hurt me!

3. avoir mal = to be in pain / to have pain

   • Describes a state of pain.
   • J’ai mal. = I’m in pain / It hurts.
   • J’ai mal à la tête. = My head hurts / I have a headache.
   • Elle a mal au ventre. = She has a stomachache.

Your sentence uses se faire mal, because we’re talking about the children ending up hurting themselves by what they do.

How would the sentence change in other tenses or with a singular child?

Same pattern, just change the subject and the verb vouloir.

Singular child (present):

• L’enfant ne veut pas se faire mal.
  = The child doesn’t want to hurt himself/herself.

Past (they didn’t want to get hurt):

• Les enfants ne voulaient pas se faire mal.
  = The children didn’t want to hurt themselves.

Perfect tense for the actual fact of getting hurt:

• Les enfants ne se sont pas fait mal.
  = The children didn’t hurt themselves / They didn’t get hurt.

Note that in ne se sont pas fait mal, fait does not agree (it stays fait, not faits) because in this construction se is considered an indirect object (they “made pain to themselves”), so the past participle stays invariable. That’s an advanced detail, but useful to know.

Why is it les enfants and not des enfants?

Both are possible, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing:

• Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal.

  • les enfants = “the children” in this context, or children in general.
  • Could refer to a specific group you and your listener know about, or to children as a general category (“Children don’t want to get hurt”).

• Des enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal.

  • Means “(some) children don’t want to hurt themselves”.
  • Grammatically correct, but sounds odd/unnatural without more context. You would normally specify which ones:
    • Des enfants de 3 ans ne veulent pas se faire mal.
      (Three-year-old children don’t want to get hurt.)

In isolation, Les enfants ne veulent pas se faire mal is the natural way to express the idea.