Au printemps, il fait beau.

Questions & Answers about Au printemps, il fait beau.

Why is it au printemps and not en printemps?
In French, most seasons use the preposition en (en été for summer, en hiver for winter, en automne for autumn) because they start with a vowel or silent 'h'. Printemps starts with a consonant, so it uses au (a contraction of à + le).
Why does the French sentence use il fait instead of "il est" for the weather?
When describing the weather, French uses the verb faire (to do or make) with the impersonal pronoun il (it). Il fait beau literally means "it makes beautiful," which is the standard way to say "the weather is nice."
The current lesson is about tout. How would I say "All spring, the weather is nice"?
You would say Tout le printemps, il fait beau. Since printemps is masculine singular, you use the masculine singular form tout followed by the definite article le to mean "all the spring" or "all spring".
Does the 's' at the end of printemps mean it is plural?
No, printemps is singular here, even though it naturally ends in an 's' in its base dictionary form. If you wanted to make it plural ("the springs"), the word itself doesn't change, but the article does, becoming les printemps or aux printemps.

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