Breakdown of Nous avons encore des robes à suspendre sur un cintre.
un
a / an (masculine)
sur
on
nous
we / us (object pronoun)
des
some (plural indefinite)
avoir
to have
encore
still, again
la robe
the dress
à
to (passive infinitive after a noun)
le cintre
the hanger
suspendre
to hang
Questions & Answers about Nous avons encore des robes à suspendre sur un cintre.
How does the grammar behind des robes à suspendre work?
This uses the passive infinitive construction you are currently learning. When you have a noun that needs an action performed on it (meaning the dresses are 'to be hung'), you link the noun to the infinitive using à. It acts almost like an adjective describing the purpose of the dresses, and translates directly to the English 'dresses to hang'.
Why does the sentence use the singular un cintre when there are multiple dresses (des robes)?
Could I use pendre instead of suspendre for hanging clothes?
Yes, pendre and suspendre both mean 'to hang' and are largely interchangeable in this context. Suspendre sounds slightly more deliberate, focusing on the physical act of suspending something from a hook or bar, while pendre is a highly common everyday word. Both are perfectly fine for clothes.
Why is encore placed before des robes instead of at the end of the sentence?
In French, short adverbs of time or frequency like encore (meaning 'still' in this context) are usually placed immediately after the conjugated verb. Putting it at the very end of the sentence, as we might occasionally do in English, would sound unnatural in French.
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