Les métadonnées indiquent la date de prise de vue.

In French, les métadonnées is normally treated as a plural noun. So French says les métadonnées for the metadata.

The singular form does exist: une métadonnée = a piece of metadata / a metadata item.

This is a difference from English, where metadata is often used like a mass noun.

Because the subject is plural: Les métadonnées.

French verbs must agree with their subject:

• la métadonnée indique = the metadata item indicates
• les métadonnées indiquent = the metadata indicate

A useful extra point: in pronunciation, indique and indiquent sound the same in normal speech. The plural shows up mainly in writing.

It is feminine.

The singular is:

• une métadonnée

The plural is:

• les métadonnées

So if you ever use an adjective with it, that adjective would agree as feminine plural if needed.

French usually uses an article where English may sometimes leave it out.

Here, la date means the date, referring to the specific date contained in the metadata. So the sentence is talking about a particular piece of information: the date of capture.

Using la is completely normal here.

Prise de vue is a common French expression in photography and video.

Literally, it is something like taking of view, but idiomatically it means:

• image capture
• shooting
• taking the photo / filming
• the moment the image was recorded

So la date de prise de vue means the date when the picture or video was actually captured.

Because prise de vue often works like a fixed technical expression.

In French, after de, you often get compact noun phrases without an article, especially in technical or formal language:

• date de naissance = date of birth
• salle de bain = bathroom
• prise de vue = image capture / shooting

So la date de prise de vue is a natural, concise way to say it.

You may also see la date de la prise de vue, which is more explicit and a little less compact. But in technical contexts, date de prise de vue is very common.

French often links nouns together with de.

Here the structure is:

• la date de X = the date of X
• prise de vue = image capture / shooting

So:

• la date de prise de vue

is built from one noun phrase inside another.

English often uses noun stacks like capture date or shooting date, but French usually prefers de structures.

A careful pronunciation is approximately:

/le metadɔne ɛ̃dik la dat də pʁiz də vy/

A rough English-style guide would be:

lay may-ta-do-nay an-deek la daht duh preez duh vyoo

A few notes:

• Les sounds like lay
• métadonnées ends like -nay
• indiquent is pronounced like indique
• vue sounds like vy, a sound that English does not have exactly

Yes, indiquer is a very natural verb here.

In this kind of context, indiquer can mean:

• to indicate
• to show
• to specify
• to give

So Les métadonnées indiquent la date de prise de vue is a normal way to say that the metadata shows or specifies the capture date.