Learn French: Je crois que l'astéroïde a une trajectoire bizarre. - I believe that the asteroid has a bizarre trajectory.

Je crois que l'astéroïde a une trajectoire bizarre.

I believe that the asteroid has a bizarre trajectory.

Breakdown of Je crois que l'astéroïde a une trajectoire bizarre.

Questions & Answers about Je crois que l'astéroïde a une trajectoire bizarre.

Why is the verb a in the indicative here, when a belief or opinion often triggers the subjunctive?

In French, affirmative statements of belief like je crois que or je pense que express a high degree of certainty or probability in the speaker's mind, so they take the indicative mood. This follows the exact same logic as il est probable que. However, if you express doubt by making it negative (je ne crois pas que) or asking a question (crois-tu que), you cross over into improbability and must use the subjunctive (ait).

Since astéroïde starts with a vowel, the article is l'. How can I remember its gender?

Astéroïde is masculine (un astéroïde). A helpful tip is that scientific words ending in the Greek suffix -oïde (meaning "resembling" or "having the form of") are almost always masculine in French, despite ending in -e.

Could I put the adjective before the noun and say une bizarre trajectoire?

It is much more natural to put bizarre after the noun. While a specific group of short, common adjectives (often remembered by the acronym BAGS: Beauty, Age, Goodness, Size) precede the noun, most descriptive adjectives—including those expressing a distinct or unusual quality like bizarre—strictly follow the noun they modify.

If I wanted to say "I believed that..." instead, would the mood or tense of a change?