Breakdown of Soudain, la sueur couvre son visage.
son
his/her/its (son, sa, ses)
le visage
the face
la
her, it (feminine direct object pronoun)
soudain
suddenly
couvrir
to cover
la sueur
the sweat
Questions & Answers about Soudain, la sueur couvre son visage.
Why is there a la before sueur when the English translation is just "sweat"?
In French, nouns almost always require an article, especially when acting as the subject of a sentence. When talking about uncountable things or general concepts like "sweat", French uses definite articles (le, la, les), whereas English usually drops them.
Since couvre comes from the verb couvrir, why doesn't it end in "-it" like regular "-ir" verbs?
The verb couvrir (to cover) belongs to a specific group of irregular "-ir" verbs that are conjugated exactly like regular "-er" verbs in the present tense. Because of this, the third-person singular ending is "-e" (il couvre) instead of "-it". Other common verbs that share this quirk are ouvrir (to open) and offrir (to offer).
Does son visage tell us that the person sweating is definitively a man?
Is there a trick to remembering the gender of sueur?
Yes! Most abstract nouns, feelings, and physical conditions ending in -eur are feminine in French. This includes words like la sueur (sweat), la peur (fear), la douleur (pain), and la chaleur (heat).
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