Questions & Answers about Cette face du mur est propre.
Wait, the current lesson is about en face de (opposite). Why does this sentence just use face?
The complex preposition en face de actually comes from the noun la face, which means "the face" or "the side" of an object. In this sentence, it's simply being used as a normal noun, so cette face just means "this side". Why does it say du mur instead of de le mur?
In French, the word de (of/from) and the masculine word for "the", le, must always merge together to form du. Since mur (wall) is masculine, "of the wall" becomes du mur. You will never see "de le" used together in French! Does propre always mean "clean"? I thought it meant "own".
It can mean both, depending on where it sits in the sentence! When propre comes after a noun, or after the verb être (like est in this sentence), it means "clean". But when it is placed right before the noun, it changes to mean "own" (for example, ma propre chambre means "my own bedroom"). Why use Cette instead of Ce for "this"?
Cette is the feminine spelling of "this". We have to use it here because face is a feminine noun (la face). If you wanted to point out a masculine noun instead, you would use the masculine spelling: ce mur (this wall). Learn Cette face du mur est propre and more in French
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