Breakdown of Les participants se sont vite mis à marcher.
être
to be
marcher
to walk
vite
fast, quickly
le participant
the participant
se mettre à
to begin
Questions & Answers about Les participants se sont vite mis à marcher.
Why does se mettre mean "to begin" here when mettre usually means "to put"?
This is a perfect example of an idiomatic pronominal verb. While mettre alone means "to put", adding the reflexive pronoun and the preposition à to form se mettre à completely shifts the meaning to "to start" or "to begin" doing something. It is extremely common in everyday French.
Why is there an s on the end of mis?
Because se mettre is a pronominal verb, it uses the auxiliary verb être in the passé composé. The past participle mis must agree with the direct object if it precedes the verb. Here, the reflexive pronoun se acts as the direct object referring back to the plural subject Les participants, so we add an s to make it plural.
Why is the adverb vite placed between sont and mis instead of at the end?
In compound tenses like the passé composé, short and common adverbs such as vite, bien, mal, or déjà are typically placed between the auxiliary verb (sont) and the past participle (mis).
Is the preposition à before marcher absolutely necessary?
Yes! The fixed structure is se mettre à followed by an infinitive verb (like marcher) or a noun. You cannot drop the à; saying se sont mis marcher would be grammatically incorrect.
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