Voted Best Answer
May 12, 2014 - 09:19 AM
Salut et merci for pointing that out to us. You are absolutely right that in the programme we taught you that the adverbs generally go between the auxiliary and the past participle in French. As you know at Fluenz we try to give you general rules that are applicable in the majority of cases but as in all languages there are always exceptions. Now long adverbs (more than 2 syllables) such as "facilement" or "lentement" are a little bit more flexible in terms of placement. For example, adverbs ending in -ment can be placed in several places:
1) Mon ami a facilement compris ce que je lui disais
My friend easily understood what I told him.
2) Mon ami a compris facilement ce que je lui disais
My friend understood easily what I told him.
3) Mon ami a compris ce que je lui disais facilement
My friend understood what I told him easily.
So as you can see you can put "facilement" in as many positions as you can with the English "easily". Unfortunately, it's not as easy as this for all other adverbs and we would go into this in much more detail at an intermediate level. For now, we recommend you stick to the rule about adverb placement that we gave you and we will update the programme to allow for all three options. Again, merci.
1) Mon ami a facilement compris ce que je lui disais
My friend easily understood what I told him.
2) Mon ami a compris facilement ce que je lui disais
My friend understood easily what I told him.
3) Mon ami a compris ce que je lui disais facilement
My friend understood what I told him easily.
So as you can see you can put "facilement" in as many positions as you can with the English "easily". Unfortunately, it's not as easy as this for all other adverbs and we would go into this in much more detail at an intermediate level. For now, we recommend you stick to the rule about adverb placement that we gave you and we will update the programme to allow for all three options. Again, merci.