Breakdown of Paul écrit le titre de chaque chapitre et l'auteur dans son cahier de français.
Questions & Answers about Paul écrit le titre de chaque chapitre et l'auteur dans son cahier de français.
Écrit is the 3rd person singular form of the verb écrire in the present tense.
Conjugation of écrire in the present:
- je cris
- tu écris
- il / elle / on écrit
- nous écrivons
- vous écrivez
- ils / elles écrivent
Since the subject is Paul (he), we need il écrit → Paul écrit.
Yes. In French, the simple present (il écrit) usually covers both meanings:
- Paul écrit…
- can mean “Paul writes…” (a habitual action)
- or “Paul is writing…” (an action happening now), depending on context.
French rarely uses a progressive form; être en train de (Paul est en train d’écrire…) exists, but the plain present is normally enough.
Because in French you often express this idea as “the title of each chapter” (one title per chapter) rather than “the titles of each chapter.”
- chaque is singular and refers to each individual chapter.
- So you use a singular noun with it:
- le titre de chaque chapitre = the title of each chapter
- literally: the title of each chapter (one title for each one).
You could say les titres des chapitres (“the titles of the chapters”), but then you’re talking about all the titles as a group, not pairing “one title per chapter” as explicitly.
Chaque means each / every, and it is:
- invariable: it doesn’t change form (no plural chaques).
- always followed by a singular noun:
- chaque chapitre
- chaque élève
- chaque jour
In English, you could usually translate it as either “each chapter” or “every chapter”, depending on what sounds more natural in context.
Both are grammatically correct, but they don’t focus the same thing:
- de chaque chapitre = of each chapter, looking at them one by one.
- de tous les chapitres = of all the chapters, as a complete set.
In this sentence, the idea is that Paul writes the title of each chapter individually, so chaque is more precise and more natural.
French often uses a shorter form where English would say “the name of the author”:
- il écrit l’auteur
→ understood as “he writes the author’s name”.
It’s very common in French to omit the word nom when it’s obvious from context:
- Écris ton nom → write your name
- Écris l’auteur → write the author (i.e. the author’s name)
- Écris la date → write the date
So l’auteur here is a natural shorthand. The full version le nom de l’auteur is also correct, just more explicit.
The verb écrit governs two direct objects joined by et:
- Paul écrit [le titre de chaque chapitre]
- Paul écrit [l’auteur]
So structurally, it’s:
Paul écrit [COD1: le titre de chaque chapitre] et [COD2: l’auteur] dans son cahier…
French often drops repetition when it’s clear:
- Paul écrit le titre de chaque chapitre et l’auteur
(= Paul écrit le titre de chaque chapitre et il écrit l’auteur).
Yes, that’s grammatically correct.
French word order is fairly flexible. You can place the complement of place/time (dans son cahier de français) either:
- at the end (most neutral here):
- Paul écrit le titre de chaque chapitre et l’auteur dans son cahier de français.
- or earlier for emphasis or style:
- Paul écrit dans son cahier de français le titre de chaque chapitre et l’auteur.
The original version sounds slightly more natural and neutral in everyday speech.
In French:
- dans un cahier = in a notebook, i.e. on the pages inside.
- sur un cahier = on top of / on the cover of a notebook.
Since Paul is writing inside his notebook, French naturally uses dans son cahier. Saying sur son cahier would make people imagine writing on the cover or on the notebook as a physical object, which is not what we want here.
Here, cahier de français normally means a notebook for French class (for the subject “French”).
In French, NOUN + de + NOUN often shows the purpose or subject of the notebook:
- cahier de maths = math notebook (for math class)
- cahier de musique = music notebook
- cahier de français = notebook used in French lessons
It doesn’t primarily mean “a notebook written in French,” though in practice it probably is in French. The key idea is its school subject.
In French, son / sa / ses agree with the gender and number of the noun owned, not with the owner’s gender.
- cahier is masculine singular → son cahier
- If the noun were feminine singular: sa trousse (her/his pencil case)
- If plural: ses cahiers (his/her notebooks)
So son cahier would be used whether Paul is male or female; what matters is that cahier is masculine.
De français here is like “of French” as a subject label (French as a school subject or field), not “of the French [person/language]” specifically.
- cahier de français = notebook for French (class/subject).
- du is the contraction of de + le (“of the”).
You’d use it if you meant something like:- le cahier du Français = the notebook of the Frenchman / of the French language (very specific or personified usage).
For a school subject, the natural pattern is:
cahier de maths, cahier de sciences, cahier de français, etc.
Yes, a few to notice:
- titre de: the -e of de is usually very weak; you’ll hear something like “titʁ də”.
- chaque chapitre: there is an optional liaison:
- chaque‿chapitre → the -que can link to the ch- of chapitre, sounding like chak‿chapitr. Many speakers do this.
- et l’auteur:
- et is just [e], no liaison: [e lo.tœʁ].
- l’auteur starts with a vowel sound; make sure the l’ is clearly attached: l’auteur not just auteur.
There is no liaison after et in standard French, so don’t link chapitre and et (no chapitr‿et).