Learn French: Nous en parlons souvent : la pression est trop forte pour étudier la littérature. - We often talk about it: the pressure is too strong to study literature.

Word

Nous en parlons souvent : la pression est trop forte pour étudier la littérature.

Meaning

We often talk about it: the pressure is too strong to study literature.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

French

Lesson

Degree with infinitives (trop, assez)

Breakdown of Nous en parlons souvent : la pression est trop forte pour étudier la littérature.

we / us (object pronoun)

souvent

often

Questions & Answers about Nous en parlons souvent : la pression est trop forte pour étudier la littérature.

Why do we use pour before étudier instead of à or de?

This sentence uses the structure trop (too) + adjective + pour + infinitive. When you want to say something is "too [adjective] to do [something]", French uses pour to show the consequence. Here, the pressure is too strong for studying.

Why is the pronoun en used here for "it"?

The verb parler uses the preposition de when talking about something (parler de quelque chose). The pronoun en is used to replace phrases that start with de. Instead of saying Nous parlons de ça, you say Nous en parlons.

Why does souvent come after the verb? In English we say "often talk".

In French, adverbs of frequency like souvent (often) are almost always placed immediately after the conjugated verb. You cannot put it before the verb like in English, so it must be Nous en parlons souvent.

Why do we need la in front of littérature?

In French, general concepts, broad categories, and school subjects require a definite article (le, la, les). While we just say "study literature" in English, French requires the article: étudier la littérature.