Learn French: Ils veulent gagner beaucoup d'argent. - They want to earn a lot of money.

Ils veulent gagner beaucoup d'argent.

They want to earn a lot of money.

Breakdown of Ils veulent gagner beaucoup d'argent.

ils

they (masculine/mixed)

Questions & Answers about Ils veulent gagner beaucoup d'argent.

Why does vouloir change to veulent here, and how is it pronounced?

veulent is the 'they' (ils or elles) form of the irregular verb vouloir (to want). Remember that the -ent ending on French verbs is completely silent, so veulent sounds a bit like 'vuhl' (rhyming with 'dull').

Why is gagner (to earn) in its infinitive form instead of being conjugated?

When you have two verbs back-to-back, only the first one gets conjugated. Since veulent is already matched to ils, the second verb (gagner) stays in its dictionary form (the infinitive). It works just like English: 'they want' (ils veulent) plus 'to earn' (gagner).

Usually it is l'argent (the money). Why is it just d'argent here?

After a word of quantity like beaucoup (a lot), French uses a simple de (of), dropping the 'the' (le, la, les, or l'). Because argent starts with a vowel, de shortens to d', making beaucoup d'argent (a lot of money).

Doesn't argent mean 'silver'?