Learn French: Le chef a commencé la réunion sans attendre. - The boss started the meeting without waiting.

In French, when you use a preposition like sans (without), it is followed directly by an infinitive verb (the basic dictionary form, like attendre). In English, we say without waiting (using -ing), but French literally says without to wait. This is a very common pattern to remember!

Does le chef mean the boss or the cook here?

Here it means the boss. In English, we borrowed the word chef to mean a head cook. However, in French, un chef simply means a boss, leader, or chief in almost any context or workplace.

Why is the past tense formed with a (a commencé) instead of est?

The verb commencer (to start) uses avoir as its helper verb in the passé composé (past tense). You only use être for a specific short list of verbs (mostly about movement or changing state, like aller or devenir) and for reflexive verbs.

Do other prepositions work like sans and take the infinitive?

Yes! This is a major rule in French. Other common prepositions like pour (for / in order to) and de (of / from) also take the infinitive. For example, you would say pour attendre (in order to wait).