Nous travaillons en ville le samedi.

We work in the city on Saturdays.

Breakdown of Nous travaillons en ville le samedi.

• travailler: to work
• en: in
• la ville: the city
• nous: we
• le: on
• le samedi: the Saturday

Questions & Answers about Nous travaillons en ville le samedi.

Why do we say en ville instead of à la ville?

In French, en ville is a set phrase meaning "in town" or "downtown," referring to the urban area in general rather than to a specific city or the inside of a town. Saying à la ville is grammatically possible in some contexts, but less common in everyday speech when indicating that you are simply going into or working in a general urban environment.

Why use nous here instead of on when talking about "we"?

French often uses on in everyday conversation to mean "we." However, nous is still perfectly correct and sometimes considered more formal. Depending on the speaker's style or region, on might be more commonly heard, but in writing or more standard speech, nous is used to mean "we."

How does le samedi mean "on Saturdays" rather than just "Saturday"?

When you use the definite article (le) before a day of the week, it implies a habitual or repeated action. So le samedi suggests "every Saturday," whereas saying samedi without the article often refers to a particular Saturday. This is why le samedi is appropriate if you mean you work downtown every Saturday.

Why is the verb spelled travaillons and not something like travailons?

The verb travailler follows a regular -er conjugation pattern. In the present tense for nous, you add -ons to the stem travaill-. Notice the double l in travaill-, which stays consistent across most forms except for pronunciation differences. So travaillons is the correct spelling.

What does the ending -ons in travaillons sound like in French?

The -ons ending typically sounds like "on" in French—somewhere between the nasal "on" and "ohn." You don’t vocalize a final "s" and the vowel sound is nasalized, which may take some practice if your native language doesn’t have nasal vowels.