Breakdown of Il était trop pauvre pour se voir accorder cette hypothèque.
être
to be
il
he
pour
for
ce
this (before a noun)
pauvre
poor
trop
too, too much
accorder
to grant
l'hypothèque (f)
the mortgage (f)
se voir
to be [verb]ed (se voir + infinitive)
Questions & Answers about Il était trop pauvre pour se voir accorder cette hypothèque.
Why do we use se voir accorder instead of a normal passive voice like être accordé?
In French, you cannot easily make an indirect object (the person receiving something) the subject of a normal passive sentence. If you said il était accordé, it would sound like he was being given away to someone else! Instead, French uses se voir + infinitive to express this indirect passive. Literally, it means he saw himself being granted the mortgage.
Why is voir in the infinitive here?
It follows the preposition pour. The structure trop [adjective] pour translates to "too [adjective] to", and prepositions like pour must be followed by a verb in its infinitive form.
I am tempted to write se voir accordé with a past participle. Why is it the infinitive accorder?
English uses a past participle here ("to be granted"), but French pairs perception verbs like voir and entendre with an infinitive to describe the action happening. In the se voir + infinitive construction, that second verb will always be an infinitive.
Why use the imperfect tense était rather than the passé composé?
The imperfect tense is used to describe ongoing states, conditions, and background situations in the past. Being poor was his ongoing financial state, not a sudden or completed action, so the imperfect is required.
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