Le verbe "demander"
A ex-french teacher of yore, once said the hardest words in french are the little ones. He was referring to de, à, en, and others. Today's short lesson gives you the rules on how to use them with the verb demander.
Que dois-je faire pour demander une prestation ?
Source: dsc.gc.ca
Je demande à ma fille de m'aider.
Source: unknown
- Grammaire
- Rule #1
demander à qqun
To ask somebody - Rule #2
demander qqchIn english, we would need a for preposition. But not in french.
To ask for something. - Rule #3
demander de l'infinitif
e.g. demander de faire le menage - All is well until I came upon this sentence:
la maniere de demander de l'aide.
I was basically confused by the 2nd de. Doesn't rule #3 states that an infinitive follows a de. A quick post to wordreference forums helped to clear my confusion.demander de l'aide
Ask for some help
demander l'aide de quelqu'un
Ask for the help of somebody
demander la pomme
Ask for the (an) apple
demander des pommes
Ask for apples.