Questions & Answers about Les enfants jouent en bas.
What does en bas literally mean here?
Literally, it means "in low" or "at the bottom." When talking about a house or building, en bas is the standard French way to say "downstairs." (For future reference, the opposite is en haut for "upstairs"). Do I pronounce the -ent at the end of jouent?
No, it is completely silent! In French, the -ent ending for third-person plural verbs (the "they" form) is never pronounced. You just say the base of the verb, so jouent sounds exactly the same as the singular form joue. Is there a liaison between Les and enfants?
Yes! Because enfants starts with a vowel, the normally silent -s at the end of Les "wakes up" and is pronounced like a "z". It connects the two words so it sounds like "Lay-zahn-fahn". Since this lesson is about chez, how would I say "The children are playing downstairs at Paul's house"?
You would simply add your chez phrase into the sentence! A natural way to phrase this would be: Les enfants jouent chez Paul en bas. Remember that chez is always followed by a person's name, a pronoun, or a title to mean "at the home of." Learn Les enfants jouent en bas and more in French
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