Learn French: L'enfant a chanté une chanson pour ce jeu. - The child sang a song for this game.

L'enfant a chanté une chanson pour ce jeu.

The child sang a song for this game.

Breakdown of L'enfant a chanté une chanson pour ce jeu.

Questions & Answers about L'enfant a chanté une chanson pour ce jeu.

Why are there two words (a chanté) for the English word "sang"?

In French, the most common past tense is the passé composé. It usually needs two parts: a helper verb (here, a from the verb avoir, meaning "has") and a past action word called a past participle (here, chanté). So, the French sentence literally says "has sung".

How do you form the past participle chanté?

The dictionary form of the verb "to sing" is chanter. Because it is a regular verb that ends in -er, you create its past participle by dropping the -er and adding an -é with an accent.

Why do we use ce before jeu?

Ce is a demonstrative adjective that means "this" or "that". You use ce here because jeu (game) is a masculine noun. If the noun were feminine, you would use cette instead.

Does l'enfant refer to a boy or a girl here?

We actually can't tell from this sentence! Because the word enfant starts with a vowel sound, both le (masculine "the") and la (feminine "the") shrink to l' to make the pronunciation smoother. The child could be either a boy or a girl.