Word
Soit tu contrôles le centre de l'échiquier, soit tu perds la partie.
Meaning
Either you control the center of the chessboard, or you lose the game.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Soit tu contrôles le centre de l'échiquier, soit tu perds la partie.
tu
you (informal singular)
de
of / from / any (in negative sentences) / about (concerning)
perdre
to lose
la partie
the part; the game
Questions & Answers about Soit tu contrôles le centre de l'échiquier, soit tu perds la partie.
Soit is the subjunctive form of être. Why aren't the verbs in this sentence in the subjunctive?
When used as soit... soit... to mean "either... or...", it acts as a conjunction linking two statements. Because it's just framing regular facts, you use the standard indicative tense—here, the present tense for contrôles and perds. You only trigger the subjunctive if you use the longer phrase soit que... soit que... (whether... or...).
Could I say Ou tu contrôles... ou tu perds... instead?
Why use la partie for "the game" instead of le jeu?
La partie refers to a single match or round of play. If you sit down to play chess, you are playing une partie. Le jeu refers to the game as an abstract concept, the rules, or the physical box of pieces. You can lose la partie (the match), but you wouldn't say you lose le jeu unless you physically misplaced the box!
I know les échecs is the word for "chess". How does l'échiquier relate to it?