Dear John,
Do you know a good way to learn the difference between amener/emmener and apporter/emporter?
I’m studying it in class right now and I’m still having a little bit of trouble understanding when to use which.
The general rule is that the verbs starting with an “a” are for people and the ones starting with “e” are for objects.
Okay so the tough part:
Amener & Emmener
Amener and emmener both are generally translated as “to bring.” The idea being that you’re taking friends or items from point A (your house for instance) to point B. So the main point here is the “men” verbs focus on people.
Je peux amener mes potes?
Can I bring my friends? Are my friends invited?
When you use the verb emmener, you mean that you want to accompany somebody to someplace. Emmener also has the meaning of leading or carry a group of people (i.e, the coach lead his team to victory).
Apporter & Emporter
The other two are generally translated meaning to take objects with you. Now you can technically “bring” something back to your house, but in a sense it’s more so that you’ve traveled to point B and now you’re taking something back to A.
The easiest way to remember this? When you want to take food out, you’ll always see signs that say “emporter.” Usually “pizza à emporter” or “des plats à emporter” in fact, emporter is probably the one you’ll encounter the most in general French speech because of this.
I hope this helped cleared up a bit of the confusion :)
Do you agree with John’s expert analysis?
Every Friday the founder of FrenchCrazy, John Elkhoury, will answer on of your questions related to learning French and living in France.
Check out the entire ASK JOHN series or submit your own question.
Merci pour l’explication !
I think there’s a little mistake here – the verb is spelled “emmener” and not “emener” :)
And one thing I was wondering about – why do Louise Attaque sing in their song “Je t’emmène au vent” if “emmener” would be only for objects?
Thanks for your help!
Hey Tim, thanks for catching that one spelling mistake.
Sorry for the confusion, emmener is used with people while emporter is used with objects. Emmener means to accompany somebody with you. Look at it this way, inside the word “emmener” is the English word “men,” so you can use that to remember it’s referring to people and not objects.