Breakdown of Ce tuyau, je le mets dans le fossé.
Questions & Answers about Ce tuyau, je le mets dans le fossé.
How would I use the structure from this lesson to specify that the pipe is 5 meters long?
You would add de plus the measurement plus de plus the dimension adjective or noun right after the noun. It becomes: Ce tuyau de 5 mètres de long, je le mets dans le fossé. You could also use the noun form: de 5 mètres de longueur. Why is the sentence structured as Ce tuyau, je le mets instead of just Je mets ce tuyau?
This is a very common spoken French structure called left-dislocation. By bringing Ce tuyau to the front and referring back to it with the pronoun le, the speaker emphasizes the topic of the sentence before stating what they are doing with it. Could I drop the le and just say Ce tuyau, je mets dans le fossé?
No, that would be grammatically incomplete in French. When you move the object to the front of the sentence for emphasis, you absolutely need a direct object pronoun (le, la, or les) before the verb to act as a placeholder for the noun you moved. What is the difference between dans and en here, and could I say en fossé?
You must use dans here because le fossé is a specific physical location introduced by a definite article (le). The preposition en is generally used with feminine countries, months, materials, or general concepts without an article, whereas dans physically places an object inside a defined space. Learn Ce tuyau, je le mets dans le fossé and more in French
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