Breakdown of Elle rit beaucoup, et son ventre lui fait mal.
Questions & Answers about Elle rit beaucoup, et son ventre lui fait mal.
Rit is the 3rd‑person singular present tense of rire = to laugh.
Present indicative of rire:
- je ris – I laugh
- tu ris – you laugh (singular, informal)
- il / elle / on rit – he / she / one laughs
- nous rions – we laugh
- vous riez – you laugh (plural / formal)
- ils / elles rient – they laugh
So Elle rit beaucoup = She laughs a lot.
In modern French, many final consonants are silent. For rire:
- ris, rit, rient are all pronounced /ʀi/ (or /ʁi/), like ri in rire.
- The final s, t, ent are not pronounced in isolation.
The t in rit can be heard only in a liaison before a following vowel sound, e.g.:
- Il rit encore → /il ʀi ɑ̃kɔʀ/ (no t sound)
- Il rit aux éclats → /il ʀi‿tozekla/ (the t links to aux)
The usual position of beaucoup (when it means “a lot/much”) is after the conjugated verb:
- ✅ Elle rit beaucoup.
- ❌ Elle beaucoup rit. (wrong)
So:
- Il travaille beaucoup. – He works a lot.
- Nous mangeons beaucoup. – We eat a lot.
Putting beaucoup before the verb like in English is not allowed in standard French.
Beaucoup generally modifies verbs or nouns:
- Elle rit beaucoup. – She laughs a lot. (verb)
- Il a beaucoup d’amis. – He has many friends. (noun)
Très modifies adjectives and adverbs:
- Elle est très drôle. – She is very funny. (adjective)
- Elle rit très fort. – She laughs very loudly. (adverb)
That’s why you say:
- Elle rit beaucoup. (not elle rit très)
- Elle a très mal. (adjective mal here, so you use très)
In French, son / sa / ses agree with the thing owned, not with the owner.
- ventre is a masculine singular noun → you must use son.
- Elle being feminine doesn’t matter for the form of the possessive.
Examples:
- Elle aime son père. – père (m.) → son
- Elle aime sa mère. – mère (f.) → sa
- Elle aime ses parents. – parents (pl.) → ses
So:
- son ventre – her stomach (masc. sing.)
- sa main – her hand (fem. sing.)
- ses mains – her hands (plural)
You could say Le ventre lui fait mal, but it sounds odd unless context already makes it clear you’re talking about her stomach.
More natural patterns for body parts:
- Elle a mal au ventre. – literally “She has pain in the stomach” → Her stomach hurts / she has a stomachache.
- Elle s’est fait mal au ventre. – She hurt her stomach.
French very often uses the definite article (le / la / les) with body parts, especially with verbs like avoir, se laver, se casser, etc., rather than son / sa:
- Je me lave les mains. – I wash my hands.
- Il s’est cassé la jambe. – He broke his leg.
Your sentence Son ventre lui fait mal is correct and close to the English structure, but Elle a mal au ventre is more idiomatic for “Her stomach hurts.”
Both relate to the area of the stomach, but they’re not used in exactly the same way.
ventre ≈ belly / tummy / abdomen
- Neutral, everyday word.
- Can refer to the outside area of the body.
estomac ≈ stomach (the organ)
- Slightly more anatomical/medical or precise.
- Used in expressions about digestion:
- J’ai mal à l’estomac. – I have stomach pain / I have a stomachache (more internal, often digestion-related).
In Elle rit beaucoup, et son ventre lui fait mal, ventre suggests her belly area hurts, maybe from laughing so hard.
The structure is based on the verb phrase faire mal à quelqu’un = to hurt someone / to cause someone pain.
- Son ventre = subject (the thing causing pain)
- fait mal = verb phrase “hurts”
- à elle = to her
In French, à + person → is usually replaced by an indirect object pronoun:
- à moi → me
- à toi → te
- à lui / à elle → lui
- à nous → nous
- à vous → vous
- à eux / à elles → leur
So à elle becomes lui, giving:
- Son ventre lui fait mal. – Her stomach hurts (her).
Son ventre fait mal à elle
- Grammatically possible only as a special emphasis, but sounds very unnatural in normal speech.
- With pronouns, French strongly prefers clitic pronouns (lui, me, etc.) before the verb, not à + pronoun after.
You might hear something like:
- Son ventre lui fait mal, à elle.
This is emphatic: “Her stomach hurts her, not someone else.”
Son ventre la fait mal
- Incorrect, because faire mal à quelqu’un takes an indirect object (à quelqu’un), so you must use lui / leur, not le / la / les (which are direct objects).
- la would be direct object, but here the person is an indirect object.
Correct patterns:
- Son ventre lui fait mal. – Her stomach hurts (her).
- Elle a mal au ventre. – She has a stomachache.
In simple tenses (like the present), unstressed object pronouns go before the conjugated verb:
Order (for a basic case):
[subject] + [object pronoun] + [verb] + …
So:
- Son ventre lui fait mal. – subject son ventre, pronoun lui, verb fait.
- Il me parle. – He talks to me.
- Elle nous téléphone. – She calls us.
fait lui mal is wrong word order in a normal statement. You might see Fais‑lui mal ! in the imperative (“Hurt him/her!”), but that’s a different structure (imperative) with a hyphen after the verb.
Lui can mean “to him” or “to her”. It’s context‑dependent:
- Il lui parle. – He talks to him / her.
- Elle lui écrit. – She writes to him / her.
In your sentence, because we know the subject is Elle, we understand that lui refers back to elle, so it means “to her”. There is no visible gender marking on lui itself.
Yes, the most idiomatic everyday way is:
- Elle a mal au ventre.
Structure: avoir mal à + definite article + body part
Examples:
- J’ai mal à la tête. – I have a headache.
- Tu as mal aux yeux. – Your eyes hurt.
- Il a mal au dos. – He has back pain.
So you could also say:
- Elle rit beaucoup, et elle a mal au ventre.
→ She laughs a lot, and her stomach hurts.
No, it’s optional here.
In French, when et connects two independent clauses with the same subject, many writers omit the comma:
- Elle rit beaucoup et son ventre lui fait mal.
Adding the comma can slightly emphasize the pause or separation between the two actions, but both versions are acceptable. In simple sentences like this, you will often see it without the comma.