Breakdown of Voici la femme dont le mari est jaloux.
être
to be
la femme
the woman
voici
here is, this is
dont
whose / about which / of which
le mari
the husband
jaloux
jealous
Questions & Answers about Voici la femme dont le mari est jaloux.
Why is there a le in dont le mari?
In French, when you use dont to mean 'whose', the noun that follows still needs a definite article (le, la, or les). You cannot drop the article like we do in English. You can think of the French phrasing literally as 'the woman of whom the husband is jealous'.
Why is the adjective jaloux masculine when the sentence is about la femme?
The adjective jaloux (jealous) describes le mari (the husband), which is a masculine noun. Even though la femme is earlier in the sentence, she isn't the one who is jealous here.
Does dont always mean 'whose'?
Not always! Dont replaces any phrase that would normally start with the preposition de (of/about). Here it means 'whose' because it shows possession (the husband of the woman). In other sentences, it might mean 'about which' or 'of whom'.
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