Question 1

English says "watch the tourists strolling." Why does French use qui flânent instead of the present participle flânant?

Accepted Answer

With perception verbs like regarder, voir, or entendre, French rarely uses the present participle to show an action in progress. Instead, it uses a relative clause starting with qui followed by a conjugated verb. So, les touristes qui flânent is the most natural way to translate "the tourists strolling" or "the tourists who are strolling."

Question 2

Could we use the infinitive here and say Nous regardons les touristes flâner?

Accepted Answer

Yes, absolutely! After perception verbs, you can use either the infinitive or the qui construction. The infinitive (flâner) often presents the action as a complete event ("we watch them stroll"), whereas qui flânent highlights that they are right in the middle of the action ("we watch them as they are strolling").

Question 3

Is flâner just a synonym for marcher or se promener?

Accepted Answer

It has a special nuance. While marcher is the physical act of walking and se promener is taking a walk, flâner means to stroll aimlessly, wander, or window-shop without any hurry or specific destination. It perfectly describes what relaxed tourists do!

Question 4

A quick refresher: why do we use devant instead of avant for "in front of"?

Accepted Answer

Devant is a preposition of place, meaning physically "in front of" something (like the stand). Avant is a preposition of time, meaning "before" an event happens. Even at an intermediate level, it is easy to mix them up when speaking quickly, so it is a good habit to mentally link devant with physical space and avant with time.

Nous regardons les touristes qui flânent devant le stand.

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