Breakdown of Il a fait face à son patron.
son
his/her/its
le patron
the boss
faire face à
to face, to cope with
Questions & Answers about Il a fait face à son patron.
Why is there an à after face in this sentence?
Does patron mean the same thing as the English word patron?
No, they are false friends. In French, patron usually means a boss or manager. If you want to talk about a patron of a restaurant or store, you would use a word like client.
If I wanted to say 'He stood up to him,' how would I replace à son patron with a pronoun?
You would use the indirect object pronoun lui, placing it before the conjugated verb to make Il lui a fait face. Because the expression uses à followed by a person, the indirect object pronoun is the correct choice here.
Why doesn't the past participle fait change its spelling to agree with anything here?
This verb is in the passé composé and uses the auxiliary avoir (a). With avoir, the past participle (fait) never agrees with the subject. It only agrees if there is a direct object placed before the verb, but this sentence has an indirect object introduced by à.
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