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If I say, "je sais rien," does that express "I know nothing" in a satisfactory way?

Or do I need to say, "je ne sais rien."?

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3 Answers 3

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If you write a French text, then make sure to use je ne sais rien as much as possible, because in fact, je sais rien is incorrect. In spoken language, it's not really a problem to use je sais rien.

Same for ne ... pas, ne ... plus and ne ... jamais

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Yes, while saying (spoken French) ne may be quite often omitted. So to answer your question yes it is satisfactory.

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Ce n'est pas l'usage, mais "je sais rien" devrait être considéré comme correct étymologiquement et signifier "je sais une chose".

On dit bien : "je sais quelques riens"

En effet, "rien" vient du Latin res = chose.

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