Breakdown of L'agent laisse passer le passager sans que le douanier inspecte la valise.
la valise
the suitcase
le passager
the passenger
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
passer
to pass by / go past
laisser
to leave (something or someone)
l'agent
the agent (m)
sans que
without (conjunction)
le douanier
the customs officer
inspecter
to inspect
Questions & Answers about L'agent laisse passer le passager sans que le douanier inspecte la valise.
Why are laisse and passer right next to each other? Doesn't the passenger go between them?
In French, when you use laisser with an infinitive to mean letting someone do something, the two verbs usually stick together. The person being allowed to do the action (le passager) comes after the infinitive (passer). This is different from English, where we split the verbs to say that the agent lets the passenger pass.
If I wanted to replace the passenger with a pronoun like him, where would it go?
If you replace le passager with the direct object pronoun le (him), it goes before the conjugated verb laisse. The sentence would become L'agent le laisse passer.
Why do we use sans que instead of just sans?
You need sans que because a new subject takes over in the second half of the sentence. The first action is done by the agent (L'agent), but the second involves the customs officer (le douanier). If the same person were doing both actions, you would use sans followed by an infinitive, like L'agent passe sans inspecter.
Is inspecte conjugated in the normal present tense here?
It looks like it, but it is actually the subjunctive mood! The phrase sans que always triggers the subjunctive because it describes an action that did not actually happen. Because inspecter is a regular -er verb, its subjunctive form (inspecte) happens to be spelled exactly the same as the regular present tense.
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