Le printemps arrive, et les fleurs commencent à fleurir.

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Breakdown of Le printemps arrive, et les fleurs commencent à fleurir.

• à: to
• commencer: to begin, to start
• la fleur: the flower

Questions & Answers about Le printemps arrive, et les fleurs commencent à fleurir.

Why is le used before printemps instead of leaving it without an article?

In French, seasons normally take the definite article when you speak about them in general. So you say le printemps, l’été, l’automne, l’hiver. You wouldn’t drop the article in a neutral descriptive sentence.

How do you pronounce printemps and why are some letters silent?

Printemps is pronounced [pʁɛ̃.tɑ̃]. The in is a nasal vowel ([ɛ̃]), the t links to the next syllable, and the final ps are both silent. You only hear two syllables.

Why do we say les fleurs instead of des fleurs or just fleurs?

When you talk about something in a general or habitual sense in French, you use the definite article. Here you refer to “flowers in general,” so it’s les fleurs. If you said des fleurs, you’d imply “some flowers” rather than the whole category.

Why is there an à in commencent à fleurir? Couldn’t we say commencent fleurir?

Many French verbs need a preposition before another verb in the infinitive. Commencer uses à: commencer à faire quelque chose. Without à, the structure is ungrammatical when the object is another verb.