Breakdown of Mon frère a prétendu qu'il était célibataire.
être
to be
il
he
le frère
the brother
avoir
to have
mon
my (mon, ma, mes)
que
that (introducing a clause)
prétendre
to claim
célibataire
single
Questions & Answers about Mon frère a prétendu qu'il était célibataire.
Why is était in the imparfait instead of the présent?
This is the sequence of tenses in reported speech. Because the main reporting verb (a prétendu) is in the past tense, the reported statement must shift back in time. The brother's original words were je suis célibataire (present tense). When reported in the past, that present tense backshifts to the imparfait (il était célibataire).
Wait, doesn't prétendre mean to pretend?
Could I say qu'il était un célibataire with the article un?
It is much more natural to leave the article out here. In French, words describing marital status (like célibataire or marié) and professions act like adjectives directly after the verb être. You generally do not use un or une unless you are adding a descriptive adjective to the noun, such as un célibataire heureux (a happy bachelor).
Why does que change to qu' before il?
The word que always drops its final vowel and uses an apostrophe when the following word starts with a vowel or a silent h. This elision is mandatory to make pronunciation flow smoothly, especially before subject pronouns like il, elle, on, ils, and elles.
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