Breakdown of Le premier orateur est vraiment brillant.
être
to be
vraiment
really
premier
first
l'orateur
the speaker (m)
brillant
brilliant
Questions & Answers about Le premier orateur est vraiment brillant.
Since this lesson is about adverbs ending in -amment, why doesn't this sentence use brillamment?
Even though you are learning how to turn adjectives ending in -ant into adverbs ending in -amment, here brillant is acting as an adjective. It describes the noun orateur (speaker). You would only use the adverb brillamment (brilliantly) if it were describing an action, as in Il parle brillamment (He speaks brilliantly).
Vraiment is an adverb, so why doesn't it have a double 'm' like the adverbs in this lesson?
The special -amment and -emment endings you are learning now are only for adjectives that end in -ant or -ent. Vraiment is formed the standard way: by adding -ment directly to the adjective vrai (true) because it already ends in a vowel.
Why does premier go before the noun, while brillant goes after it?
Most French adjectives go after the noun, like brillant. However, premier (first) is an ordinal number. Adjectives related to numbers, beauty, age, goodness, and size (often remembered by the acronym BANGS) typically go before the noun in French.
Do I pronounce the 'r' at the end of premier?
Normally, the 'r' in masculine adjectives ending in -er is silent. However, because the next word orateur starts with a vowel, you must make a liaison. The 'r' is pronounced here, connecting the two words so it sounds like "pre-myeh-ro-ra-teur".
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