Learn French: Même le chef a visité toute l'usine lui-même. - Even the boss visited the whole factory himself.

Même le chef a visité toute l'usine lui-même.

Even the boss visited the whole factory himself.

Breakdown of Même le chef a visité toute l'usine lui-même.

the boss / the manager

tout

all, everything

Questions & Answers about Même le chef a visité toute l'usine lui-même.

Why does même come right at the start of the sentence before le chef?

In this position, même acts as an adverb meaning "even." When emphasizing a specific noun or noun phrase (like le chef), même is placed directly in front of it. So même le chef means "even the boss."

Why do we need lui-même at the end if we already know who did the visiting?

Lui-même translates to "himself" and acts as an emphatic pronoun here. It highlights that the boss visited the factory personally, rather than sending an inspector or delegating the task to someone else.

Why is the pronoun lui used to make lui-même instead of il?

To say "myself," "himself," etc., French adds -même to stress pronouns (like moi, toi, lui, elle), not subject pronouns (like je, tu, il). Since the boss is a "he," we use the masculine stress pronoun lui.

I sometimes mix up "the whole" and "every." Why does toute l'usine mean "the whole factory"?