Breakdown of La colonie produit une belle cire ; j'en admire la couleur dorée.
je
I
une
a / an (feminine)
beau
beautiful / handsome
en
in, to
la couleur
the color
admirer
to admire
produire
to produce
la cire
the wax
doré
golden
la colonie
the colony
Questions & Answers about La colonie produit une belle cire ; j'en admire la couleur dorée.
Why use en ... la couleur instead of just saying sa couleur?
When talking about the parts or characteristics of an inanimate thing, like the wax (la cire), French often uses the pronoun en paired with a definite article instead of a possessive adjective like sa. It sounds much more natural and elegant in written French to say literally 'I of it admire the color' rather than 'I admire its color'.
If en replaces 'its', why do we still need la in front of couleur?
Why is en placed before admire instead of next to couleur?
In French, object pronouns like en must be placed immediately before the conjugated verb they belong to. Even though the meaning logically connects to couleur, the grammar rules dictate that en goes right before admire.
Why does belle come before the noun, but dorée comes after?
belle describes beauty, which is part of the short list of adjectives that precede the noun (often remembered by the acronym BANGS: Beauty, Age, Number, Goodness, Size). dorée describes a color, and adjectives of color always follow the noun they modify.
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