Word
Il étudie l'espagnol à la maison.
Meaning
He studies Spanish at home.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Il étudie l'espagnol à la maison.
Why does étudie end in an -e?
Étudie comes from the regular -er verb étudier (to study). For the il (he) or elle (she) forms of regular -er verbs, you drop the -er from the infinitive and add an -e. So, il étudie means "he studies".
Why is there an l' in front of espagnol?
In French, you usually need a definite article (le, la, or l') before the name of a language. While we just say "Spanish" in English, French literally says "the Spanish". Because espagnol starts with a vowel, the word le drops its vowel and shrinks to l'.
Why isn't espagnol capitalized?
Unlike in English, names of languages are not capitalized in French! You only capitalize these words when you are referring to a person of that nationality, like an English person or a Spaniard.