Breakdown of Le chien a ouvert la gueule.
le chien
the dog
ouvrir
to open
la gueule
the animal's mouth; the gob (rude, of a person)
Questions & Answers about Le chien a ouvert la gueule.
Why does the French sentence say la gueule (the mouth) instead of sa gueule (its mouth)?
When referring to body parts, French generally uses the definite article (le, la, les) rather than possessive adjectives (son, sa, ses) as long as the owner of the body part is obvious from the context.
Why use gueule instead of bouche for mouth?
Can I ever use la gueule when talking about a person?
Only if you want to be extremely rude! Applied to humans, gueule is very informal or vulgar slang for face or mouth. For example, the offensive phrase ferme ta gueule means shut your face or shut up.
Why is the past participle ouvert instead of ending in -i like other -ir verbs?
The infinitive ouvrir (to open) is irregular. Unlike regular -ir verbs (like finir which becomes fini), verbs ending in -frir and -vrir (such as offrir and découvrir) always have past participles that end in -ert.
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