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Il exagère souvent la vérité.

Il exagère souvent la vérité.
He often exaggerates the truth.
From Lesson 83:Accent stem changes (é to è)·French

Breakdown of Il exagère souvent la vérité.

il
he
souvent
often
la vérité
the truth
exagérer
to exaggerate

Questions & Answers about Il exagère souvent la vérité.

Why is there a grave accent (è) in exagère when the dictionary form has an acute accent (é)?
The verb is exagérer (to exaggerate). It is a stem-changing verb. For these verbs, the é in the final syllable of the stem changes to è for the 'boot' subjects (je, tu, il/elle/on, ils/elles) in the present tense. Since our subject is il, we write exagère.
Does changing the accent from é to è change how the word is pronounced?
Yes! The é in the infinitive exagérer sounds a bit like the 'ay' in 'say'. The è in exagère sounds like the 'e' in 'pet'. The spelling change actually happens to match this natural shift in pronunciation when the word ends in a silent -e.
Why does souvent come after the verb here, when in English we say 'often exaggerates'?
In French, short adverbs of frequency like souvent (often), toujours (always), and parfois (sometimes) are placed immediately after the conjugated verb. You cannot put them between the subject and the verb like we do in English.
Is there a trick to remembering that vérité is feminine (la vérité)?
Yes! A very reliable pattern in French is that almost all abstract nouns ending in -té are feminine. This includes words like la beauté (beauty), la liberté (freedom), and la société (society).

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