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Les marchands asiatiques sont arrivés avec la caravane.

Les marchands asiatiques sont arrivés avec la caravane.
The Asian merchants arrived with the caravan.
From Lesson 372:Consequence and origin (d'où)·French

Questions & Answers about Les marchands asiatiques sont arrivés avec la caravane.

Why is asiatiques written in lowercase when referring to a geographic origin?
In French, nationalities and geographic regions are only capitalized when used as nouns representing people, like Les Asiatiques (The Asians). When they are used as adjectives modifying a noun, as they are here with marchands, they are always written in lowercase.
Why does this sentence use sont arrivés instead of ont arrivé?
The verb arriver is a verb of movement that requires être as its auxiliary in compound tenses. Because it takes être, the past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject. Since les marchands is masculine plural, we add an -s to make it arrivés.
This lesson focuses on d'où to express consequence. How could we use it to add "hence their fatigue" to the end of this sentence?
You could add , d'où leur fatigue to the end of the sentence. When expressing consequence, d'où means "hence" or "which explains" and is followed directly by a noun phrase, allowing you to state a result without needing another conjugated verb.
Does caravane mean a camper van or a convoy of travelers here?
It means a convoy of merchants! Just like in English, une caravane can refer to a modern camper trailer attached to a car, or a historical group of travelers crossing a desert. The context of marchands (merchants) makes it clear we mean the latter here.

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