Breakdown of Paul fait de la musculation, mais il fait aussi un exercice mental en lisant en français.
Questions & Answers about Paul fait de la musculation, mais il fait aussi un exercice mental en lisant en français.
In French, many sports and physical activities use the structure faire + du / de la / de l’ + activity.
- Musculation (weight training / bodybuilding) is a feminine noun, so we use de la:
→ faire de la musculation = to do weight training / to lift weights
Why not the others?
- ✗ faire musculation – sounds incomplete or wrong; it needs the partitive article.
- ✗ faire la musculation – using la here would suggest a specific, known session or “the” weight training, which is not how French normally expresses the general activity.
So, the idiomatic way to talk about this as a general activity is faire de la musculation.
Faire de la musculation is a general term that covers:
- lifting weights at the gym
- doing resistance / strength training
- bodybuilding, in a broad, non-professional sense
It usually means “to work out with weights” rather than just light exercise or cardio. Context decides whether it feels more like “lifting weights,” “strength training,” or “bodybuilding.”
Mais = but, et = and.
The sentence contrasts two types of exercise:
- Physical: il fait de la musculation
- Mental: il fait aussi un exercice mental…
Using mais highlights the contrast: he’s not only working out physically, but also mentally.
If you said:
- Paul fait de la musculation, et il fait aussi un exercice mental…
it would still be correct, but it would sound like you’re just listing activities, with less emphasis on the contrast between physical vs mental.
Both are grammatically correct, but they don’t have exactly the same feel.
il fait aussi un exercice mental
→ puts aussi right before what is being added (a mental exercise). Very natural and neutral.il fait un exercice mental aussi
→ sounds a bit more like an afterthought or emphasis at the end: “He does a mental exercise too.” It’s still correct, but the first version is usually more common in written French.
Placing aussi before the element it modifies (un exercice mental) is generally the default, especially in writing.
Because exercice is a masculine noun in French:
- un exercice (masculine)
- therefore, the adjective must also be masculine: mental (not mentale)
So:
- un exercice mental ✅
- une exercice mentale ❌ (wrong gender and agreement)
Yes. En lisant is the gérondif form (gerund) of lire (to read). It usually expresses:
- simultaneity: doing one thing while doing another
- manner: the way in which something is done
Here, en lisant en français means:
- “by reading in French” / “while reading in French”
It explains how he is doing the mental exercise.
French uses en + present participle (gérondif) for “while doing / by doing”:
- en lisant = while reading / by reading
We do not say par lisant; par doesn’t combine with a verb like that.
Also, we cannot say ✗ en lire here; the gérondif always uses the present participle form:
- lire → lisant
- en lisant ✅, not ✗ en lire
So the correct structure to express “by reading / while reading” is en lisant.
En français means “in French (language)”.
- en + language is the normal way to say “in [a language]”:
- en français = in French
- en anglais = in English
- en espagnol = in Spanish
We don’t say dans le français or au français in this context; those are not idiomatic when talking about the language you’re speaking/reading/writing in.
So:
- lire en français = to read in French (as a language) ✅
The simple present in French often covers what English expresses with:
- simple present (He works out.)
- present progressive (He is working out.)
Paul fait de la musculation can mean “Paul works out (regularly)” or “Paul is working out (now),” depending on context.
You can add être en train de for a strong sense of “right now, in the middle of it”:
- Paul est en train de faire de la musculation.
→ Paul is in the middle of working out right now.
But in general statements like this one, the plain present (fait) is the normal form.
French usually repeats the subject and verb for clarity and style, especially in written language:
- Paul fait de la musculation, mais il fait aussi un exercice mental…
If you drop il fait:
- ✗ Paul fait de la musculation, mais aussi un exercice mental…
this can be understood, but it sounds incomplete or more like a note/heading than a full proper sentence. In standard French, repeating il fait makes the sentence well-formed and natural.
In this sentence, un exercice mental is correct: it means “a mental exercise”, one type of exercise.
- l’exercice mental = “the mental exercise”, referring to a specific, already known mental exercise.
That would change the meaning to something like:
“but he also does the mental exercise by reading in French,”
implying the listener already knows which mental exercise is meant.
So for the general idea “a mental exercise,” un exercice mental is the correct and natural choice.
Yes:
faire de la musculation
→ specifically means weight training / strength training / lifting.faire du sport
→ is more general: to play sports / to do sports or physical exercise of any kind.
So:
- Paul fait du sport could mean he plays tennis, runs, swims, etc.
- Paul fait de la musculation tells you exactly which kind of sport: weight training.