Le professeur corrige doucement l'accent de ses étudiants.

The teacher gently corrects his students' accent.

Breakdown of Le professeur corrige doucement l'accent de ses étudiants.

• de: of
• corriger: to correct
• ses: his
• le professeur: the teacher
• doucement: gently
• l'accent: the accent
• l'étudiant: the student

Questions & Answers about Le professeur corrige doucement l'accent de ses étudiants.

Why does the sentence start with Le professeur and not just Professeur or Un professeur?

In French, you almost always need an article (or another determiner) before a singular countable noun.

• Le professeur = the teacher/professor (a specific one, or one that is known in context, or sometimes "the" in a general sense: "the teacher" as a type of person).
• Un professeur = a teacher/professor (any one; not specified).
• Just Professeur (without an article) is not grammatical here in standard French. You might see it used as a form of address (e.g. a student calling: Professeur !), but not as the subject of a normal sentence.

So Le professeur corrige… is the natural way to say The teacher corrects….

Is professeur masculine or feminine? Can you say la professeure?

Traditionally, professeur is a masculine noun in French, even when talking about a woman:

• Le professeur est très sévère.
  (Could refer to a man or a woman.)

Modern usage sometimes allows a specifically feminine form:

• La professeure (increasingly accepted, especially in Canada and in France’s official recommendations)
• Informally, people also say la prof (short for professeur, and prof can be masculine or feminine depending on the article).

In this sentence, Le professeur is grammatically masculine, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you if the person is a man or a woman unless the wider context indicates it.

What tense and person is corrige, and what is the infinitive?

• The infinitive (dictionary form) is corriger (to correct).
• corrige here is:
  • present tense
  • 3rd person singular
  • of the verb corriger.

So Le professeur corrige… = The teacher corrects / is correcting… (French present covers both simple present and present continuous in English).

Why is the adverb doucement placed after corrige and not before, like in English?

In French, most adverbs of manner (how something is done) usually go after the conjugated verb:

• corrige doucement
• parle lentement
• travaille sérieusement

Putting doucement before the verb (doucement corrige ) sounds unnatural in standard French, except in very marked, poetic, or stylistic contexts.

You can also put the adverb after the object:

• Le professeur corrige l’accent de ses étudiants doucement.

This is grammatically possible but less common and often adds a slightly different rhythm or emphasis. The most neutral position here is after the verb: corrige doucement.

What exactly does doucement mean here: “softly”, “slowly”, or “gently”?

Doucement can mean several related things depending on context:

• softly / quietly (for sounds, volume)
• slowly (for speed)
• gently / kindly (for attitude, manner)

In this sentence about correcting students’ accent, it most naturally suggests gently / kindly, i.e. the teacher corrects them in a soft, considerate way — not harshly.

So an English translation might use gently or kindly rather than literally “softly” or “slowly”, unless the context specifically focuses on volume or pace.

Why is it l’accent in the singular when we’re talking about several students?

French often uses the singular when talking about something that each person has individually but that’s being referred to as a general category:

• L’accent de ses étudiants
  literally: the accent of his/her students
  meaning: the way his/her students pronounce words.

You could say:

• Les accents de ses étudiants (plural)

This would emphasize more that each student has their own distinct accent(s). Using the singular l’accent treats “accent” as a collective characteristic of the group (their pronunciation in general), which is very natural here.

Why is it l’accent and not un accent?

L’accent uses the definite article (the), not the indefinite (a), because we are talking about a specific, known accent: the accent of the teacher’s students.

• L’accent de ses étudiants = the accent that belongs to his/her students.
• Un accent de ses étudiants would be strange; it would sound like “one (out of several possible) accent of his/her students,” which does not fit this meaning.

So once you specify de ses étudiants, it naturally calls for l’accent as something specific and identified.

Why is it de ses étudiants and not des étudiants?

There is an important difference:

• de ses étudiants = of his/her students
  → The students are specifically those that belong to this teacher.
• des étudiants = (of) students (some students, in general)
  → This would sound like the accent of some students or students’ accent without saying whose students they are.

Since the sentence is about this teacher and their own students, French uses de ses étudiants.

Why is it ses étudiants and not leurs étudiants?

In French, the possessive agrees with the thing possessed, not the possessor’s gender:

• ses étudiants
  • ses: possessive adjective for “his/her/its” before a plural noun
  • étudiants: plural noun

So:

• ses étudiants = his students or her students (we don’t know the teacher’s gender from this alone).

Leurs étudiants would mean their students (students belonging to several people), which doesn’t fit because there is only one professeur in the sentence.

Why is it ses étudiants and not ses étudiantes?

Étudiant has gender:

• un étudiant = a male student
• une étudiante = a female student
• des étudiants can mean either:
  • a group of male students, or
  • a mixed group (at least one male → masculine plural is used)

If the group is entirely female and you want to highlight that, you could say:

• Le professeur corrige doucement l’accent de ses étudiantes.

In the original sentence, étudiants either implies a mixed or unspecified group, or simply uses the default masculine plural which is very common.

What is the difference between étudiants and élèves?

Both mean something like students, but they’re used in different contexts:

• un étudiant / une étudiante
  → usually for university or sometimes higher education students.

• un élève / une élève
  → usually for pupils in school (primary, middle, high school).

So:

• ses étudiants suggests that the professor teaches at university (or a similar level).
• If we were talking about a school teacher, we would more likely say:
  Le professeur corrige doucement l’accent de ses élèves.

Could we say Le professeur corrige doucement leurs accents instead of l’accent de ses étudiants?

You could say:

• Le professeur corrige doucement les accents de ses étudiants.
  (plural accents, still using ses)

But leurs accents in this sentence would sound odd, because:

• leurs normally refers back to several owners (e.g. les étudiants) previously mentioned.
• Here, the possessor in the sentence is Le professeur, not the students.

To use leurs accents, you’d typically need a sentence like:

• Les étudiants ont un accent fort. Le professeur corrige doucement leurs accents.

Here the first sentence introduces les étudiants, so leurs can refer back to them. In the original sentence, it is more natural to keep the possession clearly attached to the teacher: de ses étudiants.

Is there a difference between corriger quelque chose and corriger quelqu’un?

Yes:

• corriger quelque chose = to correct something (a mistake, an accent, an exercise)

  • corriger l’accent de ses étudiants
  • corriger une faute

• corriger quelqu’un = to correct someone (to correct the person’s behavior, work, speech, etc.)

  • Le professeur corrige ses étudiants.
    (He/She corrects his/her students — in general, not specifying what.)

In your sentence, corrige l’accent de ses étudiants focuses specifically on what he/she corrects: their accent (pronunciation), not just the students in general.