Breakdown of Si tu ne prêtes pas attention, tu confonds facilement deux mots différents.
Questions & Answers about Si tu ne prêtes pas attention, tu confonds facilement deux mots différents.
In French, for a real or general condition (things that are generally true or habitual), you use:
- si + present → present (or future / imperative)
Here, the meaning is general: Whenever / If you don’t pay attention, you (tend to) confuse two different words. So:
- Si tu ne prêtes pas attention, tu confonds facilement... ✅
Using the conditional in the si-clause (e.g. si tu ne prêterais pas) is incorrect in standard French. The conditional can appear in the result part in other patterns (e.g. Si tu faisais ça, tu confondrais...), but never directly after si in this kind of structure.
French standard negation is formed with:
- ne (or n’) before the conjugated verb
- pas after the conjugated verb
So:
- tu prêtes attention → tu ne prêtes pas attention
In spoken French, people very often drop ne and just say:
- Si tu prêtes pas attention, tu confonds facilement...
This is common and natural in speech, but in writing (especially formal writing) you should keep ne.
Yes, prêter literally means “to lend” (e.g. Je te prête mon livre – I lend you my book). But French also uses prêter in some fixed expressions:
- prêter attention (à quelque chose) = to pay attention (to something)
- prêter l’oreille = to listen carefully (literally “lend an ear”)
So prêter attention is just the natural French idiom for “to pay attention”. It’s fully normal and not considered strange, even though it’s literally “to lend attention.”
Both are correct, but there’s a nuance:
prêter attention (à quelque chose)
- Slightly more formal / written.
- Often used with a direct object: prêter attention aux détails (pay attention to the details).
faire attention (à quelque chose)
- Very common in everyday speech.
- Often has a stronger nuance of being careful, watching out:
- Fais attention ! = Be careful!
- Fais attention à la marche = Watch your step.
In this sentence, you can say:
- Si tu ne fais pas attention, tu confonds facilement deux mots différents. ✅
It sounds completely natural.
They are two different verb groups:
prêter – regular ‑er verb
- Present tense:
- je prête
- tu prêtes
- il/elle prête
The ending for tu in regular ‑er verbs is ‑es, pronounced like “prêt,” not like “prétès”.
- Present tense:
confondre – an ‑re verb (3rd group)
- Present tense:
- je confonds
- tu confonds
- il/elle confond
- Present tense:
So:
- tu prêtes (with ‑es, because it’s an ‑er verb)
- tu confonds (with ‑s, typical 3rd‑group ending)
The accent circonflexe (ê) in prêter is part of the spelling of the verb and appears in all present forms where the stem vowel is stressed: je prête, tu prêtes, il prête, etc.
confondre can mean:
- to mix up, to confuse one thing with another:
- Tu confonds ces deux mots. = You mix up these two words.
- in other contexts, to confound, to embarrass, etc., but that’s less relevant here.
In this sentence, it clearly means:
- to mix up two different words / to not tell them apart.
Be careful: English often uses “to confuse two words”, but in French you say:
- confondre deux mots (not confuser – confuser doesn’t exist in French).
In French, many adverbs of manner (how something is done) usually go:
- after the conjugated verb
So:
- Tu confonds facilement... ✅
- Tu parles lentement.
- Elle répond rapidement.
It is also possible to put facilement later:
- Tu confonds deux mots différents facilement.
That’s grammatically correct, but tu confonds facilement deux mots différents is more natural and fluid.
Unlike English, you almost never put such adverbs before the verb (tu facilement confonds... is wrong).
In French, the usual and natural order here is:
- number + noun + adjective → deux mots différents
Putting différents before the noun changes the meaning:
- différents mots = various words / several different words
- deux mots différents = specifically two different words
Deux différents mots is technically possible but sounds awkward and is rarely used; native speakers would almost always say deux mots différents.
So:
- deux mots différents = two words that are not the same. ✅
Yes, you can say:
- Si vous ne prêtez pas attention, vous confondez facilement deux mots différents. ✅
The difference is:
- tu = informal, singular “you”
- Used with friends, family, children, or people your own age in casual contexts.
- vous =
- formal singular “you” (to show respect / distance),
- or plural “you” (talking to more than one person).
The grammar changes with vous:
- tu prêtes / tu confonds
- vous prêtez / vous confondez
Both are possible, but the nuance changes:
tu confonds facilement
- Describes a tendency / habit: you do easily mix them up.
- Stating a fact about what happens when you don’t pay attention.
tu peux facilement confondre
- Stresses possibility: it’s easy to mix them up (it can very easily happen).
- Feels slightly more detached, less about your personal habit.
In the original sentence, tu confonds facilement emphasizes what you actually end up doing when not paying attention, which fits a warning or general observation. Both are grammatically correct.
Yes, there is one important liaison:
- deux mots is pronounced [deu z mots], with a z‑sound linking deux and mots.
Other points:
- In careful speech, you pronounce the ne in ne prêtes pas:
- [si ty nə prɛt pa]
- In everyday speech, people often drop ne and say:
- [si ty prɛt pa] (Si tu prêtes pas attention...)
There’s no liaison between si and tu, because tu starts with a consonant.