Learn French: La famille porte des vêtements noirs pour le deuil. - The family wears black clothes for the mourning.

La famille porte des vêtements noirs pour le deuil.

The family wears black clothes for the mourning.

Breakdown of La famille porte des vêtements noirs pour le deuil.

des

some (plural indefinite)

the piece of clothing

Questions & Answers about La famille porte des vêtements noirs pour le deuil.

How would I change this to say "The family is supposed to wear black clothes" using the current lesson's grammar?

You would use être censé. Because la famille is feminine singular, you must add an e to make it censée, and change the main verb to the infinitive: La famille est censée porter des vêtements noirs.

Why is the verb singular (porte) when a family is made up of multiple people?

In French, collective nouns like la famille (the family), le groupe (the group), or l'équipe (the team) are strictly singular and always take the il/elle verb form. While English sometimes treats collective nouns as plural (e.g., "the family are wearing"), French does not.

Why is the word des required before vêtements?

In English, we can simply say "wears black clothes" leaving out the article entirely before a plural noun. French requires an article before almost every noun. Here, des is the plural indefinite article, acting as the plural form of un/une.

How do you pronounce the tricky ending of the word deuil?

The -euil combination produces a vowel sound similar to the "ea" in the English word "earn" (or the "u" in "hurt"), followed by a quick "y" sound. It is the exact same sound found in words like feuille (leaf) and écureuil (squirrel).