Learn French: Nous partons maintenant et nous avons des sacs à dos. - We are leaving now and we have backpacks.

Nous partons maintenant et nous avons des sacs à dos.

We are leaving now and we have backpacks.

Breakdown of Nous partons maintenant et nous avons des sacs à dos.

and

nous

we / us (object pronoun)

des

some (plural indefinite)

maintenant

now

Questions & Answers about Nous partons maintenant et nous avons des sacs à dos.

Why is it nous partons and not nous partissons like other -ir verbs?

Partir (to leave) is an irregular -ir verb. Regular -ir verbs add an -iss- before the plural endings, like nous finissons (we finish). But for irregular verbs like partir, sortir, and dormir, you just take the consonant stem part- and add the normal plural ending -ons to make nous partons.

The English translation says "We are leaving", but isn't nous partons just "we leave"?

French only has one present tense, so nous partons translates to both "we leave" and "we are leaving". Because the sentence includes the word maintenant (now), "we are leaving" is simply the most natural way to say it in English.

How exactly does des sacs à dos mean "backpacks"?

French often creates specific terms by linking nouns together with the preposition à. Un sac is a bag, and le dos is the back. Put together, un sac à dos literally means a "bag for the back", which is the French term for a backpack.

Why doesn't dos get an extra -s to make it plural in des sacs à dos?