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"Je Te Manque" or "Tu Me Manques" ?

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"Je Te Manque" or "Tu Me Manques" ?

Bonjour à tous,

The verb "manquer" follows a different construction in French and English. And it's very confusing for students.

1 - I miss you = you are being missed by me = TU me manques

The solution is to slightly change your English sentence so you get the correct word order in French.

Instead of thinking "I miss you" => switch it to "you are being missed by me".

That will give you the correct pronoun/person to start with in French. And that's the key.
  • I miss you = you are being missed by me = TU me manques.
  • You miss me = I am being missed by you = JE te manque.


2 - The verb has to agree with the first pronoun (the subject)

That is the second trick of "manquer".

A mistake I hear all the time is: "je vous manquez".

The verb "manquer" has to agree with the subject, the first pronoun - here the je. Not the vous.

  1. Il vous manque - not il vous manquez (He is being missed by you = you miss him)
  2. Tu nous manques - not tu nous manquons (You are being missed by us = we miss you)


3 - The middle pronoun can only be me (m'), te (t'), lui, nous, vous, leur

In this construction, "manquer" used an indirect object pronoun.

So, your only choices for the middle pronoun is among:

  1. me or m' for I
  2. te or t' for you (of tu)
  3. lui both for he and she. This one is tricky to remember, watch out, no "elle", nor "la" here!
  4. nous for us
  5. vous for you (of vous)
  6. leur for them, both feminine and masculine. Not ils, not elles.

4 - Manquer without pronouns

Of course, you don't have to use pronouns. You can use nouns. The logic remains the same.
  • I miss Camille - Camille is being missed by me - Camille me manque

Note however that if you only used nouns, not even subject pronouns, you'd have to add an "à" after manquer:
  • Olivier misses Camille - Camille is being missed by Olivier - Camille manque à Olivier.

5 - The verb manquer also has other meanings

Manquer also has other meanings, and the constructions are much easier: they are the same as in English.

  1. To miss something, like missing a train.
    The construction is then just like in English.
    J'ai manqué le train - I missed the train.
    In colloquial French, we'd say "j'ai raté le train".  
  2. Manquer de + something means to lack something.
    Ça manque de sel - it lacks salt - or in English, there is not enough salt...  
  3. Manquer de + verb means to fail to do something - but it's a very old construction, we don't use it often.
    You may run into it in writing, but that's about it.
    Cette voiture a manqué de me renverser - this car almost ran me over.
    Nowadays, we'd use faillir:
    Cette voiture a failli me renverser.

Voilà, getting accustomed to using the verb manquer is going to take some practice - my 15 years old daughter who is bilingual still struggles with it sometimes - in both languages!

À la prochaine,
 
 
 
 
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