Breakdown of Soit qu'ils aient trop de fierté, soit que ce soit la jalousie, ils refusent de parler.
être
to be
ce
it / this (with être)
ils
they (masculine/mixed)
avoir
to have
parler
to speak
trop de
too much, too many
refuser
to refuse
de
to (introducing an infinitive after a verb)
soit que
whether it is because
la fierté
the pride
la jalousie
the jealousy
Questions & Answers about Soit qu'ils aient trop de fierté, soit que ce soit la jalousie, ils refusent de parler.
Why is the subjunctive mood used for aient and the second soit?
The structure soit que... soit que... (whether... or...) always requires the subjunctive mood in French. It introduces alternative hypotheses or possible reasons rather than stating a confirmed fact. Here, it triggers the subjunctive forms of avoir (aient) and être (soit).
What is happening in the phrase soit que ce soit? Why is soit repeated?
It looks repetitive, but those two instances of soit serve entirely different roles. The first soit is part of the fixed conjunction soit que (whether). The second soit is the verb être conjugated in the subjunctive to match the pronoun ce (it is).
The English translation includes the word "because", but there is no parce que in the French sentence. Why?
The conjunction soit que... soit que... literally translates to "whether it be that... or whether it be that...". It inherently introduces alternative causes for the main action (ils refusent de parler). In English, we often add "because" to make this sound natural, but French doesn't need an extra word to express the cause here.
Why do we use trop de fierté instead of trop de la fierté?
As a quick refresher: adverbs of quantity like trop (too much), beaucoup (a lot), and peu (a little) are almost always followed by a simple de (or d'). You drop the definite article (le, la, les) after these quantity words, so "too much pride" is just trop de fierté.
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