Learn French: Le vaisseau le plus rapide pourra décoller demain. - The fastest spaceship will be able to take off tomorrow.

Le vaisseau le plus rapide pourra décoller demain.

The fastest spaceship will be able to take off tomorrow.

Breakdown of Le vaisseau le plus rapide pourra décoller demain.

Questions & Answers about Le vaisseau le plus rapide pourra décoller demain.

Where does the double 'r' in pourra come from?

pourra is the future tense of pouvoir (to be able to / can). In the future tense, pouvoir uses the special irregular stem pourr-. Since the subject is le vaisseau (an "it"), we add the standard il/elle/on future ending -a to make pourra.

Why do we translate pourra as "will be able to" instead of "will can"?

In English, the word "can" doesn't have a future form, so we are forced to swap it for "will be able to". French is much more straightforward here: pouvoir is a normal verb, so you just put it directly into the future tense.

Why is there a second le in le vaisseau le plus rapide?

This is how French builds superlatives (words like "fastest" or "biggest"). You use the definite article (le, la, or les) followed by plus (more) and the adjective. When the adjective comes after the noun, you must repeat the article, which gives us literally: le vaisseau (the spaceship) le plus rapide (the most fast).

Why does décoller end in -er here?

It is in its infinitive (dictionary) form. In French, when two verbs are paired together, only the first one gets conjugated, and the second verb stays in the infinitive. Because pourra is already conjugated, décoller stays in its full form.