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Breakdown of J’appelle Paul sur mon téléphone portable pour le remercier.
je
I
Paul
Paul
mon
my
sur
on
pour
for
appeler
to call
le téléphone
the phone
remercier
to thank
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“How does grammatical gender work in French?”
Every French noun is either masculine or feminine, and this affects the articles and adjectives used with it. "Le" is used with masculine nouns and "la" with feminine ones. Adjectives also change form to match — for example, "petit" (masc.) becomes "petite" (fem.).
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Questions & Answers about J’appelle Paul sur mon téléphone portable pour le remercier.
Why does j’appelle have an apostrophe and double “l”?
In French, when je precedes a verb that starts with a vowel sound, e is dropped and replaced with an apostrophe, becoming j’. As for the double “l” in appelle, that’s simply the normal spelling for the first and third person singular present tense of appeler (j’appelle, il/elle appelle).
Why do we say le remercier instead of lui remercier?
In French, remercier is a transitive verb that takes a direct object. Paul is the direct object (the person being thanked). Hence we use the direct object pronoun le (him) rather than the indirect object pronoun lui.
Why is pour followed directly by le remercier rather than another preposition?
Pour is used before an infinitive to indicate purpose or intention. In this case, it shows the reason for calling (to thank him). So pour remercier means “in order to thank.” The direct object pronoun in "le remercier" just clarifies who is being thanked.
Why use sur mon téléphone portable to say “on my cell phone”?
In French, one common way to say you're using a particular device for a call is with sur, literally “on.” You might also see depuis mon téléphone portable (“from my cell phone”), but sur is perfectly acceptable to express the idea of calling via your device.
Could we say je téléphone à Paul instead of j’appelle Paul?
Yes. Téléphoner and appeler can both be used to talk about making a phone call in French. Téléphoner à Paul is more specific to the act of phoning (“to call Paul by phone”), while appeler Paul is simply “to call Paul.” Both are correct and commonly used.