Learn French: Elle protège notre planète.

Elle protège notre planète.

She protects our planet.

Breakdown of Elle protège notre planète.

Questions & Answers about Elle protège notre planète.

Why does protège have a grave accent (è) when the infinitive protéger has an acute accent (é)?

Protéger is a stem-changing verb. For verbs that end in -é_er, the é changes to è in the forms where the verb ending is silent (like the -e in elle protège). This happens with je, tu, il/elle/on, and ils/elles. For nous and vous, the accent stays an é.

Does changing the accent from é to è change how the verb is pronounced?

Yes! The é in the infinitive protéger is pronounced a bit like the "ay" in "play". The è in protège sounds like the short "e" in the English word "pet". The spelling changes because the stress shifts to that syllable when the verb ending is silent.

If "our" means more than one person, why do we use notre instead of the plural nos?

In French, possessive words must match the noun they are attached to, not the people who own it. Even though "our" refers to multiple people, there is only one planet (planète). Because the noun is singular, we use notre. If we were talking about multiple planets, we would use nos planètes.

Planète is a feminine noun. Does change if the noun is masculine?