Il vient d'annoncer cet événement à la radio.

Questions & Answers about Il vient d'annoncer cet événement à la radio.

How does vient d'annoncer mean "just announced"? Literally, it looks like "comes to announce".
In French, to say that you "just" did something, you use the present tense of venir (to come) followed by de and the infinitive (the dictionary form) of the action verb. Here, il vient (he comes) + de + annoncer (to announce) creates the "recent past" meaning: "he just announced".
Why is it d'annoncer instead of de annoncer?
When short words ending in 'e' (like de, le, je, or ce) are followed directly by a word starting with a vowel, the 'e' is dropped and replaced with an apostrophe. Since annoncer starts with an 'a', de shrinks to d' to make pronunciation smoother.
Why do we use cet événement? Shouldn't "this" be ce for a masculine word?
You are right that événement is masculine, and normally "this" for masculine nouns is ce (like ce livre). However, because événement starts with a vowel, French uses the special form cet to avoid having two vowels right next to each other. (For feminine words, it is always cette).
Why is it à la radio instead of sur la radio? In English, we say "on the radio".
Prepositions rarely translate word-for-word! In French, you hear or announce things "at the" radio (à la radio) or "at the" television (à la té). If you used sur (sur la radio), it would sound like he physically stood on top of the radio box to make his announcement.

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