Breakdown of Il faut que les citoyens s'impliquent avant d'ajouter une taxe.
une
a / an (feminine)
ajouter
to add
il
it (impersonal subject)
falloir
to be necessary / must (impersonal)
que
that (introducing a clause)
le citoyen
the citizen
avant de
before (+ infinitive)
s'impliquer
to get involved
la taxe
the tax
Questions & Answers about Il faut que les citoyens s'impliquent avant d'ajouter une taxe.
Is s'impliquent in the subjunctive here? It looks exactly like the present tense.
Yes, it is! The expression il faut que (it is necessary that) always forces the following verb into the subjunctive mood. However, for regular -er verbs like s'impliquer, the ils/elles form happens to be spelled exactly the same in both the present indicative and the subjunctive.
Could I just say Il faut les citoyens s'impliquer without using que?
No, when you want to specify exactly who must do the action (in this case, les citoyens), you have to use il faut que followed by a conjugated subjunctive verb. You only use il faut directly with an infinitive when making a general statement, like il faut s'impliquer (one must get involved).
Why is there an s' in front of impliquent?
It comes from the reflexive verb s'impliquer. In French, you don't just get involved—you literally involve yourself. Because the subject is les citoyens (they), the reflexive pronoun is se, which drops its vowel and becomes s' before the vowel in impliquent.
Why do we use avant d'ajouter instead of conjugating the verb?
We use avant de followed by an infinitive verb (ajouter) to express a general action, which translates neatly to "before adding". If you needed to specify a new subject doing the adding, like "before the government adds a tax", you would instead use avant que followed by a conjugated subjunctive verb.
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