Breakdown of Ils avaient déjà perdu le tiers de leurs traîneaux.
ils
they (masculine/mixed)
avoir
to have
de
of / from / any (in negative sentences) / about (concerning)
leur
their (singular and plural forms: leur, leurs)
déjà
already
perdre
to lose
le tiers
the third
le traîneau
the sled (sleigh, often pulled by animals)
Questions & Answers about Ils avaient déjà perdu le tiers de leurs traîneaux.
Why is it le tiers and not le troisième for 'a third'?
In French, fractions use specific nouns for the first few numbers. For a third, it is un tiers (or le tiers as seen here). Similarly, a quarter is un quart and a half is un demi. From a fifth onwards, you usually just add -ième to the number, like un cinquième, which matches the ordinal number, but the first few are exceptions.
Why is the adverb déjà placed between avaient and perdu?
In compound tenses like the plus-que-parfait used here, short adverbs of time, degree, or frequency (like déjà, beaucoup, or souvent) are placed between the conjugated auxiliary verb (avaient) and the past participle (perdu).
Why does the possessive leurs have an 's' here?
The word leur translates to 'their'. Because the item being owned by them (the sleds, or traîneaux) is plural, the possessive adjective must agree with it and take an 's', becoming leurs. If they had only lost one sled collectively, it would be leur traîneau.
A quick refresher: why use avaient perdu instead of ont perdu here?
This is the plus-que-parfait (pluperfect), meaning 'had lost'. It is used here to establish a timeline. By using the imperfect tense of the auxiliary avoir with the past participle, it shows that the loss of the sleds happened even further in the past, before another past event in the broader story.
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