Breakdown of L'équipage travaille malgré la fatigue.
travailler
to work
malgré
despite
l'équipage
the crew (m)
la fatigue
the fatigue
Questions & Answers about L'équipage travaille malgré la fatigue.
Why does the French sentence use the noun la fatigue instead of a verb like 'despite being tired'?
Why is there a la before fatigue? In English, we just say 'despite fatigue'.
In French, abstract nouns representing general concepts (like fatigue, love, courage, or patience) require a definite article (le, la, l', or les). Therefore, 'fatigue' must be written as la fatigue.
Since l'équipage (the crew) is a group of people, why is the verb travaille singular?
Like most collective nouns in French (words that represent a group, such as la famille or l'équipe), l'équipage is grammatically singular. Even though it contains many people, the group itself acts as a single unit, so it takes the third-person singular verb form (il/elle travaille).
Can I use malgré que instead of just malgré?