Marie aime lire son livre avant le petit-déjeuner.

Marie likes to read her book before breakfast.

Breakdown of Marie aime lire son livre avant le petit-déjeuner.

• Marie: Marie
• aimer: to like
• le petit-déjeuner: the breakfast
• lire: to read
• le livre: the book
• avant: before

Questions & Answers about Marie aime lire son livre avant le petit-déjeuner.

Why is it son livre and not sa livre?

In French, son, sa, and ses all mean his/her but agree with the gender (and number) of the noun rather than the owner. Since livre is masculine, we use son even though Marie is a woman.

Why do we say avant le petit-déjeuner with the article le?

In French, meals are usually referred to with the definite article (le, la, l’, les), because they are seen as specific, common daily events. Thus, it’s le petit-déjeuner, not just petit-déjeuner on its own.

Can avant be replaced with devant here?

No, avant indicates “before” in time, whereas devant is used to say “in front of” in terms of location. Since we’re talking about an action that takes place before breakfast, we need avant.

What does lire mean, and why doesn’t it need a preposition here?

Lire means to read. In French, after verbs like aimer (to like/love), we usually follow directly with the infinitive form of another verb (for example, aimer faire quelque chose). It doesn’t require an additional preposition, so aimer lire is the correct construction.

If we wanted to say “Marie does not like to read her book before breakfast,” how would we form that in French?

We would use the negative structure ne...pas: Marie n’aime pas lire son livre avant le petit-déjeuner. Notice that ne goes before the conjugated verb (aime), and pas follows it.