Breakdown of Le train va très vite, mais le bus va très lentement.
Questions & Answers about Le train va très vite, mais le bus va très lentement.
Why do we use très in this sentence instead of beaucoup?
We use très (very) because it is intensifying the adverbs vite (fast) and lentement (slowly). You use très with adjectives and adverbs. You would use beaucoup (a lot/much) if you wanted to intensify the verb itself, for example: Le train voyage beaucoup (The train travels a lot). I thought "fast" was rapide. Why does the sentence use vite?
rapide is an adjective, which means it describes a thing (like un train rapide for "a fast train"). vite is an adverb, which describes an action. Because we are describing how the train is moving (va), we use vite. Does lentement end in -ment for the same reason "slowly" ends in "-ly"?
Exactly! In French, adding -ment to an adjective is the standard way to create an adverb (a word that describes an action). Here, it takes the adjective lent (slow) and turns it into lentement (slowly) to describe how the bus goes. Why do we use va for the train and the bus?
va is the "he/she/it" form of the verb aller (to go). Just like in English, it is perfectly natural in French to use aller when talking about vehicles moving from one place to another. Since le train and le bus are singular "it" nouns, they both use va. Learn Le train va très vite, mais le bus va très lentement and more in French
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