Le bus arrive à l'arrêt.

The bus arrives at the stop.

Breakdown of Le bus arrive à l'arrêt.

• le bus: the bus
• à: at
• arriver: to arrive
• l'arrêt: the stop

Questions & Answers about Le bus arrive à l'arrêt.

Why is Le bus used instead of Un bus?

Le is the definite article (“the”) and is used when both speaker and listener know which bus is meant. You’d use Un bus (“a bus”) only if you were mentioning it for the first time or speaking of any bus in general.

Why isn’t there a subject pronoun like Il before arrive?

In French, you can place the noun (Le bus) directly before the verb as its subject. There’s no need for Il because Le bus already fills that role. You could say Il arrive if you’d already established that you were talking about the bus.

Why is the verb arrive spelled without an “s,” unlike English “arrives”?

French verbs of the first group (ending in -er) form the 3rd-person singular present simple by dropping -er and adding -e. So for arriver:
• je j’arrive
• tu arrives
• il/elle arrive
The extra -s appears in tu and ils/elles, not in il/elle.

What tense is arrive, and can you show the full present tense conjugation of arriver?