Breakdown of Même cet artisan a du mal à finir la réparation.
ce
this (before a noun)
finir
to finish
même
same; even
l'artisan
the craftsman (m)
Questions & Answers about Même cet artisan a du mal à finir la réparation.
Why is Même placed at the very beginning of the sentence here?
In this sentence, même is an adverb meaning "even," and it directly modifies cet artisan (even this craftsman). When used this way, it goes right in front of the noun or pronoun it modifies. If we put it after the noun (cet artisan même), it would become an adjective meaning "the craftsman himself," which changes the meaning completely.
Could I say a des difficultés à instead of a du mal à to mean "has trouble"?
You could, but avoir du mal à is a very common, natural idiom in everyday French for expressing "to have trouble" or "to have a hard time" doing something. Just remember that it always takes the preposition à followed by an infinitive verb (like finir here).
I sometimes mix up ce, cet, and cette. Why is it cet artisan here?
Artisan is a masculine singular noun, so the standard demonstrative adjective (this/that) would be ce. However, because artisan starts with a vowel, ce changes to cet to make pronunciation smoother and avoid a vowel clash. Cette is strictly for feminine nouns.
If I wanted to make this sentence negative, how would that affect a du mal à?