Breakdown of Le donateur a apporté des choses à trier.
des
some (plural indefinite)
la chose
the thing
avoir
to have
apporter
to bring (to a place)
trier
to sort
à
to (passive infinitive after a noun)
le donateur
the donor
Questions & Answers about Le donateur a apporté des choses à trier.
Why do we use à trier instead of pour trier?
In French, when an infinitive describes what must be done to a noun, you use à. This is the passive infinitive construction. Even though the English translation is 'things to sort', the grammatical meaning in French is 'things to be sorted'. You would use pour to express a general purpose, like Je suis venu pour trier (I came in order to sort), but to connect the action directly to the noun receiving it (des choses), you need à.
Could I say des choses à être triées to make it clearly passive?
No, that would sound very unnatural. The construction Noun + à + infinitive already carries a passive meaning by itself. French avoids using être (to be) plus a past participle in these noun-modifying phrases. Just stick to the active-looking infinitive, à trier.
I often mix up apporter and amener. Why is it a apporté here?
You use apporter (to bring) for inanimate, carryable objects—in this case, des choses. You use amener (to bring / to lead) for people, animals, or vehicles. A helpful trick: apporter shares a root with porter (to carry), so use it for things you can physically carry!
If the donor brought specific things, how would the sentence change?
You would change the indefinite article des to the definite article les. It would become Le donateur a apporté les choses à trier (The donor brought the things to sort). In this sentence, des choses implies they just brought an unspecified quantity of items.
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