Learn French: Leur papa est très sympa.

Leur papa est très sympa.

Their dad is very nice.

Breakdown of Leur papa est très sympa.

Questions & Answers about Leur papa est très sympa.

Why do we use leur here instead of leurs since "their" refers to multiple people?

In French, the possessive word matches the thing being owned, not the owners. Because there is only one dad (papa), we use the singular form leur. If we were talking about multiple things, like their dogs, we would add an "s" and say leurs chiens.

Does leur change if the word after it is feminine, like a mom?

Nope! Earlier you learned that words like "my" change based on gender (mon vs ma). But for plural owners, it's much easier! Leur is used for both masculine and feminine singular words. So "their dad" is leur papa and "their mom" is leur maman.

Is sympa a regular adjective? It looks a bit unusual.

Sympa is actually the shortened, everyday version of the word sympathique (nice or friendly). French speakers love to shorten words! Because the full word sympathique ends in an "e", the short version sympa works for both masculine and feminine people without changing.

Why use très here instead of beaucoup?

In French, très means "very" and is used to describe adjectives, just like in this sentence with très sympa (very nice). Beaucoup means "a lot" or "much" and is usually used with verbs or nouns, like merci beaucoup (thanks a lot).