Breakdown of Je vois des gens pressés marchant sur le trottoir.
je
I
sur
on
des
some (plural indefinite)
les gens
the people
voir
to see
marcher
to walk
pressé
in a hurry / rushed
le trottoir
the sidewalk
Questions & Answers about Je vois des gens pressés marchant sur le trottoir.
Why does this sentence use marchant instead of qui marchent?
Both mean exactly the same thing! In French, you can often replace a relative clause (a phrase starting with qui) with a present participle ending in -ant. Using marchant instead of qui marchent makes the sentence a bit more concise, just like saying people walking instead of people who are walking in English.
Since gens is plural, shouldn't marchant have an -s at the end?
No, and this is a really important rule! When a present participle is used as a verb to show an action is happening, it is invariable. This means it never changes its spelling to match the gender or number of the noun. Since the people are actively walking, marchant stays exactly as it is without an -s.
Wait, then why does pressés get an -s while marchant doesn't?
Because they are doing two different jobs in the sentence. Pressés (hurried) is a past participle acting purely as an adjective. It describes the state of the people, so it must agree in number with the plural noun gens. Marchant, as we just saw, is acting as an active verb, so it follows the no-agreement rule.
Is the noun gens masculine or feminine here?
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