Le bébé n'a pas peur.

Questions & Answers about Le bébé n'a pas peur.

Why does the French sentence use a (has) instead of a word for "is"?
In English, we use the verb "to be" for feelings (like "is afraid"). In French, you use avoir (to have) for many physical states and feelings. The expression is avoir peur (literally "to have fear"). Since le bébé acts as a "he" or "it", we use the matching form of avoir, which is a.
Why is it n'a pas and not ne a pas?
To make a sentence negative, you put ne and pas around the verb. But because the verb a starts with a vowel, the e in ne gets dropped to make pronunciation smoother. This turns ne a pas into n'a pas.
Why isn't there a word like une or la before peur?
When using these special avoir expressions for feelings and states (like avoir faim for hunger or avoir soif for thirst), you don't use an article (like un, une, le, or la). You just put the noun directly after the verb.
Does anything change if the baby is a girl?
No, the sentence stays exactly the same! The word bébé is always masculine (le bébé), even if the baby is a girl. And since peur is a noun meaning "fear" (not an adjective), it doesn't add an "e" or change its spelling to match the baby.

Learn Le bébé n'a pas peur and more in French

All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.

  • ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
  • ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
  • ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free