Learn French: Les enfants jouent en bas. - The children are playing downstairs.

Les enfants jouent en bas.

The children are playing downstairs.

Breakdown of Les enfants jouent en bas.

downstairs, at the bottom

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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."