Learn French: Ils ont une fenêtre dans la salle de bain.

Ils ont une fenêtre dans la salle de bain.

They have a window in the bathroom.

Breakdown of Ils ont une fenêtre dans la salle de bain.

une

a / an (feminine)

ils

they (masculine/mixed)

Questions & Answers about Ils ont une fenêtre dans la salle de bain.

Why is it ont here, and how is it different from sont?

ont is the "they" form of the verb avoir (to have). It is very easy to confuse with sont, which is the "they" form of être (to be). The trick to telling them apart when speaking is the connecting sound: Ils ont makes a "Z" sound (eel-ZON) because the "s" in Ils blends into the starting vowel of ont. Ils sont makes a sharp "S" sound (eel-SON).

Why is bathroom translated as three words, salle de bain?

French rarely mashes nouns together into one word like English does with "bathroom". Instead, it uses de (of) to connect them. salle means "room" and bain means "bath", so salle de bain literally translates to "room of bath".

How do I know if salle de bain is masculine or feminine?

Look at the word right before it! We use la, which is the feminine word for "the". For compound phrases connected by de, the gender of the whole phrase comes from the very first noun. Since salle (room) is feminine, the whole phrase is treated as feminine.

Why use dans for "in"?