Nous cuisons les légumes pour le dîner.

We cook the vegetables for dinner.

Breakdown of Nous cuisons les légumes pour le dîner.

• nous: we
• pour: for
• le légume: the vegetable
• le dîner: the dinner
• cuire: to cook

Questions & Answers about Nous cuisons les légumes pour le dîner.

Which word is the main verb in this sentence, and what is its infinitive form?

The main verb is cuisons, and its infinitive form is cuire, which means “to cook” (in the sense of cooking by heat).

What tense and mood is cuisons, and how would you translate it into English?

Cuissons is the present indicative (nous-form) of cuire. In English it can be rendered as either “we cook” or “we are cooking,” since French uses the same form for both simple present and present continuous.

How do you conjugate cuire in the present indicative for all the subject pronouns?

Present of cuire is irregular:

• je cuis
• tu cuis
• il/elle/on cuit
• nous cuisons
• vous cuisez
• ils/elles cuisent

Why doesn’t French have a separate form like “we are cooking” (present continuous) as in English?

French normally uses the simple present for both habitual actions (“we cook every Tuesday”) and ongoing actions (“we are cooking right now”). To stress the ongoing aspect you can say nous sommes en train de cuire les légumes, but it’s not required.

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

• les légumes with the definite article often refers to vegetables in general or a specific batch you have.
• des légumes would mean “some vegetables.”
• Omitting the article entirely is ungrammatical here: French almost always needs an article before a countable noun.

Why is it pour le dîner rather than pour dîner or au dîner?

• pour
  • noun expresses purpose: “in order to have dinner.” You need the definite article le because dîner is a countable event (“the dinner”).
• pour dîner (without article) would be a rare infinitive use and sounds odd.
• au dîner means “at dinner” (location/time), not “for dinner (purpose).”

Why does dîner carry a circumflex accent on the i?

The accent circonflexe (î) often marks a historical loss of s in older French (compare Latin disjunare → French dîner). It also signals the vowel is pronounced /e/ and can affect spelling rules.

Could you use a different verb construction, like “we make the vegetables cook”?

Yes. You could say nous faisons cuire les légumes pour le dîner, literally “we make the vegetables cook for dinner.” It’s slightly more wordy; cuire alone is more direct.

How are cuisons, légumes, and dîner pronounced?

• cuisons [kɥi.zɔ̃] – the u and i form the French front rounded sound [ɥ], and the final -ons is a nasal [ɔ̃].
• légumes [le.ɡym] – the é is [e], the u in French is [y], and final -es is silent.
• dîner [di.ne] – the î is pronounced [i], and the final -er is [e].