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Tu regrettes ton mensonge, alors tu t'excuses.

Tu regrettes ton mensonge, alors tu t'excuses.
You regret your lie, so you are apologizing.
From Lesson 147:Indirect object pronouns in the past (lui ai, m'a)·French

Questions & Answers about Tu regrettes ton mensonge, alors tu t'excuses.

Why is there a t' before excuses?
In English, you simply "apologize," but in French, the verb is reflexive: s'excuser (literally "to excuse oneself"). The t' is the reflexive pronoun "yourself," which must go right before the verb in the present tense.
Since this lesson is about pronoun placement in the passé composé, where would the t' go if I wanted to say "you apologized"?
Object pronouns always go right before the helper verb (auxiliary) in the passé composé. Because s'excuser is reflexive, it uses être as its helper. To say "you apologized," you would place the t' before es: Tu t'es excusé (or excusée if "you" is female).
Is alors the best word for "so" here?
Yes! Alors is incredibly common in both spoken and written French to mean "so" or "therefore." It perfectly links a cause (regretting a lie) to its natural result (apologizing).
Why is it ton mensonge?
Mensonge (lie) is a masculine noun in French. Even though it ends in an "e" (which often signals a feminine noun), it is an exception. Because it is masculine, you must use the masculine possessive word ton for "your."

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