Word
Ils ont fait empirer leurs caries pour avoir mangé trop de bonbons.
Meaning
They made their cavities worsen for having eaten too many candies.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ils ont fait empirer leurs caries pour avoir mangé trop de bonbons.
ils
they (masculine/mixed)
pour
for
avoir
to have
manger
to eat
Questions & Answers about Ils ont fait empirer leurs caries pour avoir mangé trop de bonbons.
Why does this sentence use pour avoir mangé instead of just pour manger?
Because the action of eating candies happened in the past, before the cavities worsened. To express a completed cause, French uses pour followed by the past infinitive (avoir or être + past participle). If you used pour manger, it would mean "in order to eat" (a goal), rather than "for having eaten" (a past cause).
Could I just say parce qu'ils ont mangé instead of pour avoir mangé?
Yes, parce qu'ils ont mangé is perfectly correct and means "because they ate". Using pour + past infinitive is just a slightly more elegant and concise way to express this cause-and-effect relationship.
Why use the phrase ont fait empirer instead of just ont empiré?
The verb empirer can mean both "to get worse" and "to make worse". While you can use it directly (ils ont empiré leurs caries), the causative construction faire + infinitive (ils ont fait empirer) puts more emphasis on the fact that their habits caused the situation to worsen, rather than them acting on the cavities directly.
Why is it trop de bonbons instead of trop des bonbons?