Question 1

The English translation says 'interrogation'. Why use interrogatoire instead of the French word interrogation?

Accepted Answer

In French, une interrogation usually refers to a school quiz or the general act of asking questions. A formal police or legal questioning is always un interrogatoire.

Question 2

Why do we need the article le in le mien? Could I just say mais mien commence?

Accepted Answer

No, in French, possessive pronouns (meaning 'mine', 'yours', 'his', etc.) must always be preceded by a definite article (le, la, or les). It agrees with the masculine singular noun it replaces (l'interrogatoire), making it le mien.

Question 3

The translation says 'is starting', but commence is just the simple present tense. Why not use a continuous tense here?

Accepted Answer

French does not have a direct equivalent to the English present continuous ('is starting'). The simple present tense (le présent) covers both 'mine starts' and 'mine is starting'. You only use the phrase être en train de if you really need to emphasize the 'in the middle of doing' aspect, but here commence alone is perfectly natural.

Question 4

Since our current lesson is on en dépit de, how could I use it to say 'In spite of the end of your interrogation, mine is starting'?

Accepted Answer

The preposition en dépit de must be followed by a noun, not a full subject-verb clause (so you cannot say en dépit de tu finis...). You would have to change the first part into a noun phrase, like this: En dépit de la fin de ton interrogatoire, le mien commence.

Tu finis ton interrogatoire, mais le mien commence.

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