I don’t understand why there is a “les” in this sentence. The English translation is: “you will forget them.” why the french express this meaning like "you, the, forget(verb). I’m confused. or this is something about future tense perhaps?
You them will forget (word order in French) —> You will forget them (word order in English)
In French, sometimes the object of the sentence, in the above case “them”, comes before the verb and sometimes after, depending upon whether you are referring to an indirect object to direct object.
Je pense à lui —> I am thinking of him
Je lui parle ----> I am speaking to him
Le, la and les are pronouns when they come before the verb, meaning him, her and them respectively, agreeing with the gender of the noun they subsitute.
E.g. Je le mange = I eat it.
Je l’ai lu = I have read it.
Je peux les voir = I can see them.
They are direct object (accusative) pronouns only. The indirect object versions are lui and leur for ‘to him’, ‘to her’ (both lui in this case) and ‘to them’, but they also appear before the verb. As 2Maria says, there are cases they come after the verb, but the form can change.
Pronouns, and their interactions with verbs, are quite a complicated bit of French grammar.
As an aside, if it seems strange that the word for ‘the’ should mean ‘him’, ‘her’, etc., ‘le’ and ‘la’ come from the Latin ‘ille’ and ‘illa’ meaning ‘that man’ and ‘that woman’. So it makes sense that they can also be used as pronouns.
Thank you all. Everything became so clear and make sense after I learned more Michel Thomas course. This question is so basic. I probably should have tried harder to look up answer on the internet first. Anyway, as strange as it seems to me, it’s interesting to know verb, object order in French is a bit like Japanese, “I this apple eat.”
LingQ community is so wonderful because you guys. thanks.