Breakdown of Elle soulève rarement des poids.
elle
she
des
some (plural indefinite)
rarement
rarely
soulever
to lift
Questions & Answers about Elle soulève rarement des poids.
Why does rarement come after the verb instead of before it?
In English, we say 'She rarely lifts.' But in French, adverbs of frequency like rarement (rarely), souvent (often), and parfois (sometimes) go immediately after the conjugated verb. So the French word order is literally 'She lifts rarely' (Elle soulève rarement).
Why is it des poids instead of just poids? The English translation doesn't say 'some'.
In French, nouns almost always need a little word (an article) in front of them. You can't just say poids by itself like we do with 'weights' in English. Des is the plural indefinite article (the plural of un or une). It translates to 'some', so the French sentence literally means 'She rarely lifts some weights.'
How do you pronounce poids, and is it always plural because it ends in an 's'?
Why does the verb soulève have an accent mark (è)? Isn't the basic verb soulever?