Question 1

How do we translate "the one" in this sentence?

Accepted Answer

In English we say "the one", but you cannot translate this literally into French as le un. Instead, you must use a demonstrative pronoun. Celui is the masculine singular demonstrative pronoun, and when paired with qui, it means "the one who" or "he who".

Question 2

Why is it celui and not celle or ceux?

Accepted Answer

Demonstrative pronouns must match the gender and number of the noun they replace. Here, "the one" refers back to le spécialiste, which is a masculine singular noun. If we were talking about a female specialist (la spécialiste), we would use the feminine singular pronoun and say celle qui.

Question 3

Why do we use qui and not que after celui?

Accepted Answer

You use qui when the pronoun is the subject of the following verb. In this sentence, "the one" is the person performing the action of identifying the mushrooms. If "the one" was the object of the action instead—like in "the one that I bought" (celui que j'ai acheté)—you would use que.

Question 4

Why does the sentence use les in les champignons instead of des?

Accepted Answer

In French, you use definite articles (le, la, les) when talking about a general category of things. The English translation just says "mushrooms" without an article, but French requires les because the specialist identifies mushrooms in general, rather than just "some" mushrooms (des champignons).

Le spécialiste est celui qui identifie les champignons.

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