Learn French: Il n'a pas trouvé son portefeuille dans le sac à dos. - He did not find his wallet in the backpack.

Il n'a pas trouvé son portefeuille dans le sac à dos.

He did not find his wallet in the backpack.

Breakdown of Il n'a pas trouvé son portefeuille dans le sac à dos.

not (used before the verb)

Questions & Answers about Il n'a pas trouvé son portefeuille dans le sac à dos.

Why does pas come before trouvé?

In the past tense (passé composé), the negative pieces ne and pas go around the helping verb, not the main action word. Here, they surround the helping verb a to make n'a pas. The main verb trouvé (found) simply sits at the end outside of the negative sandwich.

Why is it n'a instead of ne a?

When the negative word ne comes right before a vowel, it drops the e and attaches to the next word with an apostrophe. Since the helping verb a starts with a vowel, ne a becomes n'a.

If the sentence was 'She did not find her wallet', would it change to sa portefeuille?

No, it would still be son portefeuille! In French, possessive words like son (his/her) match the gender of the object being owned, not the owner. Because portefeuille is a masculine noun, it always takes son, whether it belongs to a man or a woman.

How does sac à dos translate to 'backpack'?

The word sac means 'bag' and dos means 'back'. The small preposition à connects them to show the bag's purpose or design. So, un sac à dos literally means 'a bag for the back'.