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Il regarde un film en repassant les vêtements.

Il regarde un film en repassant les vêtements.
He watches a film while ironing the clothes.
From Lesson 149:The gerund (en parlant)·French

Questions & Answers about Il regarde un film en repassant les vêtements.

Why is "en" used here before "repassant"?
The combination of en and a verb ending in -ant is called the gérondif. It is used to show that two actions are happening at the exact same time by the same person. Here, it translates nicely to "while ironing".
How do you form the word "repassant"?
To get the -ant form (the present participle), you take the nous form of the verb in the present tense, drop the -ons, and add -ant. For repasser (to iron), the nous form is repassons. Drop the -ons and add -ant to get repassant.
Could I say "pendant qu'il repasse" instead of "en repassant"?
Yes! Pendant qu'il repasse means "while he is ironing" and is completely correct. However, using the gérondif (en repassant) is a very natural and concise way to express this in French, as long as the same person is doing both actions.
Why does the sentence use "les vêtements" instead of "des vêtements"?
In French, les vêtements (the clothes) is used here because he is ironing a specific pile of laundry, rather than just some random undefined clothes. If he were just ironing "some clothes" in general, you could use des vêtements, but using the definite article les is standard for specific household chores.

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