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Le professeur exigeant veut que nous soyons silencieux.

Le professeur exigeant veut que nous soyons silencieux.
The demanding teacher wants us to be silent.
From Lesson 187:Subjunctive for desires (vouloir que, aimer que)·French

Questions & Answers about Le professeur exigeant veut que nous soyons silencieux.

Why is the verb soyons used here instead of sommes?
Soyons is the subjunctive form of être for nous. You have to use the subjunctive here because of the phrase veut que. Whenever you use a verb expressing a desire, will, or demand (like vouloir) followed by que, the next verb must be in the subjunctive mood.
Why doesn't the French sentence literally translate to "wants us to be" (like veut nous être)?
French doesn't use the "verb + person + infinitive" structure for expressing what you want someone else to do. Instead of saying "wants us to be," French requires a completely new clause starting with que: veut que nous soyons (literally, "wants that we be").
Why does exigeant come after professeur?
Most descriptive adjectives in French go after the noun. Exigeant (demanding) is actually a present participle (an "-ing" word derived from the verb exiger) functioning as an adjective, and these almost always follow the noun they describe.
Since nous is plural, why doesn't silencieux end in an -s?
Adjectives that already end in -x in their masculine singular form (like silencieux) do not change in the masculine plural. They simply keep the -x. It would only change if the group "we" was entirely female, in which case it would become silencieuses.

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