Breakdown of Ils avaient vu que l'injustice rendait les gens agressifs.
ils
they (masculine/mixed)
les gens
the people
avoir
to have
voir
to see
que
that (introducing a clause)
rendre
to make (+ adjective)
l'injustice
the injustice (f)
agressif
aggressive
Questions & Answers about Ils avaient vu que l'injustice rendait les gens agressifs.
Why does this sentence use rendait for 'made' instead of a form of faire?
In French, when you want to say 'to make someone or something + adjective' (expressing a change in state or emotion), you must use rendre. If you used faire here, it would incorrectly sound like you are physically manufacturing aggressive people. Faire is used for causative actions with verbs, such as faire pleurer (to make someone cry).
Why is the first verb in the pluperfect (avaient vu) and the second in the imperfect (rendait)?
This is about matching the timeline. Avaient vu (had seen) is an action completed further in the past than the main story. Rendait is in the imperfect because it describes an ongoing reality or general truth that was happening at that time (injustice was making people aggressive), rather than a single, sudden event.
Why does agressifs have an s at the end?
Why is it les gens instead of des gens if the English translation just says 'people'?
When talking about a general category or concept in French, you must use the definite article (le, la, les). Here, the sentence refers to people in general, so it requires les gens. Using des gens would change the meaning to 'some people', referring to an unspecified but limited group.
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