Breakdown of Dès que le syndicat l'annoncera, la grève commencera.
commencer
to start
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
annoncer
to announce
dès que
as soon as
le syndicat
the union
la grève
the strike
Questions & Answers about Dès que le syndicat l'annoncera, la grève commencera.
Why does the French sentence use the future tense annoncera while the English translation uses the present tense "announces"?
In English, we use the present tense after time phrases like "as soon as" to talk about the future. But in French, if the action happens in the future, you must use the future tense! So after dès que, you use the Futur simple (annoncera) to match the future action in the main part of the sentence (commencera).
What exactly does dès que mean, and how is it different from quand?
What does the l' in l'annoncera represent?
It is the direct object pronoun for "it," standing in for the news or decision being announced. Object pronouns go right before the verb in French, and since annoncera starts with a vowel, le or la contracts to l'.
How do you form the future tense for annoncer and commencer?
For regular -er verbs, you take the full infinitive (the dictionary form ending in -er) and add the Futur simple endings. Since both subjects here (le syndicat and la grève) act as "it" (third-person singular), you simply add the ending -a to the infinitives.
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