Word
Prends celui qui est récupérable, c'est un jouet à emballer.
Meaning
Take the one that is salvageable, it is a toy to pack.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Prends celui qui est récupérable, c'est un jouet à emballer.
être
to be
un
a / an (masculine)
qui
who
prendre
to have (a meal/drink) / to take
Questions & Answers about Prends celui qui est récupérable, c'est un jouet à emballer.
Why does the sentence use à emballer instead of à être emballé for a passive meaning?
This is the passive infinitive construction. In French, you typically use a Noun + à + Infinitive to describe an object that needs an action performed on it. Translating 'to be packed' literally as à être emballé sounds very unnatural here. Note that using pour emballer would completely change the meaning to 'in order to pack', implying the toy is a tool used for packing.
Why do we need celui qui instead of just translating 'the one' as le?
In French, you cannot place a definite article like le directly in front of a relative pronoun like qui. To express 'the one that' or 'the one who', you must use a demonstrative pronoun (celui, celle, ceux, or celles). Because we are referring to a masculine singular noun, we use celui.
Could we say il est un jouet instead of c'est un jouet?
Does the word récupérable follow a reliable pattern for creating adjectives?