Breakdown of Il a l'occasion de voir les avant-derniers patients.
il
he
voir
to see
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
avoir l'occasion de
to have the chance to
Questions & Answers about Il a l'occasion de voir les avant-derniers patients.
Why does derniers have an 's' but avant does not in the compound adjective avant-derniers?
This highlights the current lesson's rule! In compound adjectives made of an invariable word (like an adverb or preposition) plus an adjective, the first word never changes. Avant (before) acts as an invariable prefix here. However, dernier is an adjective, so it must agree in gender and number with the masculine plural noun patients, becoming derniers.
How would avant-derniers change if the sentence was about female patients?
Why use l'occasion instead of l'opportunité to translate 'the opportunity'?
This is a very common false friend for English speakers. In French, une opportunité traditionally refers to the 'timeliness' or 'appropriateness' of an action. When you are talking about 'a chance to do something', the correct word to use is almost always une occasion.
Why is the preposition de used before the verb voir?
The noun occasion requires the preposition de when it is followed by an infinitive verb. You should memorize this as a set chunk: avoir l'occasion de faire quelque chose (to have the opportunity to do something).