Learn French: Ce bruit est vraiment agaçant. - This noise is really annoying.

Ce bruit est vraiment agaçant.

This noise is really annoying.

Breakdown of Ce bruit est vraiment agaçant.

Questions & Answers about Ce bruit est vraiment agaçant.

Why does agaçant end in -ant?

It comes from the verb agacer (to annoy) and is acting as a verbal adjective. Just like in English where we add -ing to a verb to make an adjective (like annoying), in French you often add -ant to the stem of a verb.

Would agaçant change if we were talking about a feminine noun, like a voice (une voix)?

Yes! When a present participle is used as an adjective, it must agree with the noun it describes. If you were talking about a feminine word like a voice, you would add an e to make it feminine: Cette voix est vraiment agaçante.

Why is there a cedilla (the little hook) under the c in agaçant?

To form this word, we take the stem from the nous form of the present tense: nous agaçons. The cedilla is needed to keep the soft s sound before the vowels o and a. If it were just a regular c before an a, it would be pronounced with a hard k sound.

Why is it ce bruit and not cet bruit?