Breakdown of Le micro coûte cher, baissez le volume de crainte de le casser.
coûter
to cost
cher
expensive
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
casser
to break
le micro
the microphone
baisser
to lower / to go down / to fade (intransitive)
de crainte de
for fear of
le volume
the volume
Questions & Answers about Le micro coûte cher, baissez le volume de crainte de le casser.
Would cher change to chers if we were talking about multiple microphones?
Could I say Le micro est cher instead of Le micro coûte cher?
Why do we use de crainte de followed by the infinitive casser instead of de crainte que?
You use de crainte de plus an infinitive when the subject of both actions is the same (you are lowering the volume, and you are the one who might break it). If the subjects were different, you would have to use de crainte que followed by a conjugated verb in the subjunctive mood.
Why is the pronoun le placed immediately before casser?
The pronoun le (meaning 'it', referring to the microphone) is the direct object of the action casser. In French, object pronouns always go directly in front of the infinitive they belong to, even when they follow a preposition like de.
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