Learn French: Il gèle dans ce petit village. - It is freezing in this small village.

Il gèle dans ce petit village.

It is freezing in this small village.

Breakdown of Il gèle dans ce petit village.

Questions & Answers about Il gèle dans ce petit village.

Why does gèle have an accent mark when the infinitive verb geler doesn't?

Geler (to freeze) is a stem-changing verb. In the present tense, when the verb ending is silent (like the -e in the il form), the unaccented e in the stem changes to è. This tells us to pronounce the syllable with a slightly open "eh" sound. You will see the exact same pattern in verbs like acheter (to buy), which becomes il achète.

Does il mean "he" in this sentence?

Not exactly! Here, il means "it." Just like in English when we say "it is freezing" or "it is raining," French uses the impersonal pronoun il for weather expressions. You cannot use ça (that/it) to talk about the general weather.

Why is petit placed before village? I thought French adjectives go after the noun.

Usually, French adjectives do come after the noun. However, there is a short list of common adjectives that go before the noun. These usually describe Beauty, Age, Goodness, or Size (often remembered by the acronym BAGS). Because petit (small) describes size, it goes before village.

Why do we use ce for "this" instead of cet or cette?

The word village is masculine and starts with a consonant, so we use the standard masculine demonstrative adjective ce. You would use cette if the noun were feminine, and cet if it were a masculine noun starting with a vowel or a silent h.