Question 1

Does piocher really mean "to draw"?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in the context of playing games! While its literal translation is "to dig with a pickaxe" (a pickaxe is une pioche), in card games or board games, piocher is the everyday French word for drawing a card or picking a piece from a pile.

Question 2

Why do we need the preposition de before piocher?

Accepted Answer

In French, when you use the impersonal structure C'est + [noun or adjective] to make a general statement, you usually need the preposition de to connect it to an infinitive verb. Here, de links the phrase C'est une mauvaise stratégie (It's a bad strategy) to the action piocher (to draw).

Question 3

Could I use Il est instead of C'est at the beginning of this sentence?

Accepted Answer

Not in this sentence. Because une mauvaise stratégie is a noun phrase (it starts with the article une), you must use C'est. You would only use Il est for this kind of impersonal statement if it were followed immediately by an adjective alone, such as: Il est mauvais de piocher souvent (It is bad to draw often).

Question 4

Why is the adjective mauvaise placed before the noun stratégie?

Accepted Answer

While most French adjectives follow the noun, mauvais belongs to a small group of common, short adjectives that come before it. A helpful trick is the acronym BANGS (Beauty, Age, Number, Goodness, Size). Since mauvais describes "Goodness" (or lack thereof!), it goes in front of the noun.

C'est une mauvaise stratégie de piocher souvent.

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