Breakdown of Elle essaie de ne plus gaspiller d'eau quand elle se douche.
Questions & Answers about Elle essaie de ne plus gaspiller d'eau quand elle se douche.
In French, many verbs must be followed by de + infinitive when the next “object” is another verb.
Essayer (to try) is one of them:
- Elle essaie de dormir. – She is trying to sleep.
- Nous essayons de comprendre. – We are trying to understand.
So when essayer is followed by a verb (gaspiller here), the correct structure is:
essayer de + infinitive
Without de, the sentence is ungrammatical:
✗ Elle essaie ne plus gaspiller…
With an infinitive, the normal placement of ne … plus is:
ne + infinitive + plus
So the core bit is:
- ne plus gaspiller – to no longer waste / to stop wasting
Because ne plus gaspiller is functioning as an infinitive phrase after essayer de, you get:
- essaie de ne plus gaspiller
You can’t split ne and plus around de. They must both go around the infinitive:
- ✔ de ne plus gaspiller
- ✗ de ne gaspiller plus (feels wrong/very awkward to a native speaker)
In French, ne … plus is itself a complete negation. It means no longer / not anymore.
- ne … pas → not
- ne … plus → no longer, not anymore
- ne … jamais → never
- ne … rien → nothing
So in ne plus gaspiller, ne … plus forms one unit. Adding pas would be wrong:
- ✔ Elle essaie de ne plus gaspiller d’eau.
She is trying not to waste water anymore. - ✗ Elle essaie de ne pas plus gaspiller d’eau.
If you said ne pas gaspiller, that would just mean not to waste, with no idea of “anymore” or “no longer”:
- Elle essaie de ne pas gaspiller d’eau.
She is trying not to waste water (in general).
ne … pas = not
- Elle ne gaspille pas d’eau. – She does not waste water.
ne … plus = no longer / not anymore
- Elle ne gaspille plus d’eau. – She no longer wastes water / She doesn’t waste water anymore.
In the sentence:
- Elle essaie de ne plus gaspiller d’eau.
she is trying to stop wasting water – to change her current habit. If you used ne … pas, it would just be saying she is trying not to waste water at all, without the idea of a change from a past habit.
There are two main points:
- Partitive article in the positive form
Normally, if we’re talking about water in an unspecified quantity (some water), we use the partitive:
- Elle gaspille de l’eau. – She wastes (some) water.
- Partitive becomes plain de after a negation
With ne … plus / ne … pas etc., de la / du / de l’ / des usually reduce to de (or d’ before a vowel):
- Elle gaspille de l’eau.
→ Elle ne gaspille plus d’eau.
So, in the negative infinitive:
- ne plus gaspiller de l’eau
becomes - ne plus gaspiller d’eau
That’s why we have d’eau: it’s de + eau, and the e drops before the vowel (d’).
Using l’eau would sound like you are talking about a specific water (for example, “the water from this bottle”):
- Elle ne veut plus gaspiller l’eau du robinet.
She no longer wants to waste the tap water.
But in your sentence it’s general: water in general, so d’eau is correct.
In standard grammar, no: with a general, non-specific quantity and a negation, you should use de / d’, not de l’.
So:
- ✔ Elle essaie de ne plus gaspiller d’eau.
- ✗ Elle essaie de ne plus gaspiller de l’eau. (non‑standard in this meaning)
You will sometimes hear native speakers keep de l’eau in speech, but as a learner, it’s better (and safer) to follow the rule: after ne … plus / ne … pas with an indefinite quantity, use de / d’.
Because se doucher is a reflexive verb meaning to shower (oneself).
- se doucher → to take a shower oneself
- doucher quelqu’un → to shower someone else (a baby, a patient, etc.)
So:
- Elle se douche. – She is having a shower.
- Elle douche le bébé. – She is showering the baby.
In your sentence, she is showering herself, so you must use the reflexive form se douche.
Se is a reflexive pronoun. It refers back to the subject (elle) and indicates that the subject performs the action on herself.
Person-by-person for se doucher in the present:
- je me douche – I shower (myself)
- tu te douches – you shower (yourself)
- il/elle se douche – he/she showers (himself/herself)
- nous nous douchons – we shower (ourselves)
- vous vous douchez – you shower (yourselves)
- ils/elles se douchent – they shower (themselves)
So elle se douche literally means “she showers herself,” which we translate naturally as “she showers” or “she takes a shower.”
Yes, absolutely. Both are common and natural:
- quand elle se douche – when she showers / when she is showering
- quand elle prend une douche – when she takes a shower
They mean practically the same thing. Prendre une douche is very common in everyday French. Se doucher is also frequent, especially in more neutral or slightly formal contexts. In your sentence, both would work:
- Elle essaie de ne plus gaspiller d’eau quand elle se douche.
- Elle essaie de ne plus gaspiller d’eau quand elle prend une douche.
The verb is essayer. In the present tense:
- j’essaie / j’essaye
- tu essaies / tu essayes
- il/elle essaie / essaye
- nous essayons
- vous essayez
- ils/elles essaient / essayent
Both spellings essaie and essaye are officially correct for the forms with -ai-. In modern usage:
- essaie is more common in writing.
- essaye is also accepted but seen less often.
So in your sentence:
- Elle essaie de ne plus gaspiller d’eau… ✅
- Elle essaye de ne plus gaspiller d’eau… ✅ (also correct)