Learn French: Quelle que soit son intolérance, il ne boit jamais de lait. - Whatever his intolerance may be, he never drinks milk.

The phrase quel que has to agree in gender and number with the noun it refers to. Here, the noun is intolérance, which is feminine singular, so we use the feminine singular form quelle que.

Why does the verb "soit" come before the subject "son intolérance"?

In this specific concession structure (quel que + être + subject), the verb être always comes right after quel que, meaning the subject is inverted and placed at the end of the clause. Also, remember that être must be in the subjunctive mood here, which is why we use soit.

Wait, "intolérance" is feminine. Why does the sentence use the masculine possessive "son" instead of "sa"?

Good catch! Even though intolérance is feminine, it starts with a vowel. To avoid the awkward sound of two vowels placed together (sa intolérance), French uses the masculine form son for smoother pronunciation.

Why is it "jamais de lait" and not "jamais du lait"?

In French, when you make a sentence negative, partitive articles like du, de la, or des (meaning "some") change to de or d'. Since ne ... jamais is a negative structure, du lait changes to de lait.