Breakdown of Le soir, notre groupe regarde une série et parle de chaque épisode ensemble.
Questions & Answers about Le soir, notre groupe regarde une série et parle de chaque épisode ensemble.
In French, le soir (literally the evening) is commonly used to express a general, repeated time, and it often corresponds to English in the evening or in the evenings.
- Le soir, notre groupe regarde… ≈ “In the evening, our group watches… / In the evenings, our group watches…”
- French uses the definite article le with parts of the day (le matin, l’après-midi, le soir, la nuit) to talk about habits or general time, where English often uses in the… without “the.”
You don’t need a preposition (like dans or en) here; Le soir on its own functions like a time adverbial: “in the evening / evenings.”
Both relate to “evening,” but they don’t overlap perfectly:
soir (masculine): the time of day as a point or segment.
- Le soir, je lis. – “In the evening, I read.”
- Ce soir – “this evening / tonight.”
soirée (feminine): the duration of the evening, or an “evening event.”
- J’ai passé une bonne soirée. – “I had a good evening.”
- Une soirée entre amis – “an evening with friends / a get-together.”
In your sentence, you want a general time of day (“in the evening”), so Le soir, with soir, is the natural choice, not La soirée.
In French, the verb agrees with the grammatical subject, not with the idea of how many people are in that group.
- groupe is a singular noun → it takes il/elle form:
- Notre groupe regarde… (3rd person singular: il regarde)
- regardent would be for a plural subject:
- Nos amis regardent… (3rd person plural: ils regardent)
Even though “our group” contains many people, le groupe is treated as one unit grammatically, so you must use regarde, not regardent.
If you wanted to focus on the individuals, you could say:
- Les membres de notre groupe regardent une série.
- Nous regardons une série.
Because regarder is a transitive verb in French: it directly takes an object without a preposition.
- regarder quelque chose – “to watch / look at something”
- regarder une série
- regarder un film
- regarder la télévision
Adding a preposition (regarder à, regarder sur, etc.) would be wrong in this meaning.
This is similar to other French verbs that don’t take a preposition where English does:
- écouter la radio (not écouter à la radio) – “to listen to the radio”
- attendre le bus (not attendre pour le bus) – “to wait for the bus”
In this context, une série usually means a TV series / a show, like a Netflix series or something broadcast on TV.
- regarder une série – “to watch a (TV) series / show”
- You can make it more explicit:
- une série télé or une série télévisée – “a TV series”
Note that série is feminine, so you say une série, la série, cette série.
English “show” can also be une émission, but émission is more general and includes news programs, game shows, etc. For fiction shows with episodes and seasons, série is the most natural word.
In French, the usual way to say “to talk about something” is:
- parler de quelque chose
So:
- parler de chaque épisode – “to talk about each episode”
Other structures are not correct in standard French:
- parler chaque épisode – wrong; parler here needs de when it means “to talk about.”
- parler sur chaque épisode – sounds wrong or at least very unnatural; parler sur is not the normal pattern for “talk about” in French.
Compare:
- parler de politique – to talk about politics
- parler de lui – to talk about him
Two key points:
chaque is always followed by a singular noun:
- chaque épisode – “each episode”
- Never chaque épisodes (that’s incorrect).
With parler de, you don’t add another article before chaque:
- parler de chaque épisode – correct
- You cannot say parler de le chaque épisode or parler du chaque épisode.
So the pattern is:
- parler de + chaque + singular noun
- parler de chaque épisode
- parler de chaque personnage
If you wanted “all the episodes” instead of “each episode,” you’d say:
- parler de tous les épisodes – “to talk about all the episodes”
ensemble means together.
In your sentence, it shows that the members of the group are talking together:
- …parle de chaque épisode ensemble. – “…talks about each episode together.”
Typical positions:
- After the verb (or verb phrase), especially in spoken French:
- On mange ensemble. – “We eat together.”
- Ils travaillent ensemble. – “They work together.”
- In your sentence, it comes at the end, which is very natural:
- …regarde une série et parle de chaque épisode ensemble.
If you move ensemble earlier, it can sound slightly odd or at least marked:
- …parle ensemble de chaque épisode. – possible, but a bit more formal or emphatic.
The default, neutral place is at the end of the clause, as in your sentence.
Yes, you could, especially in spoken French:
- Le soir, on regarde une série et on parle de chaque épisode ensemble.
- Le soir, nous regardons une série et nous parlons de chaque épisode ensemble.
Differences:
- notre groupe: emphasizes the group as an entity; more explicit and a bit more formal or descriptive.
- on: very common in spoken French; often used for “we”.
- nous: the standard written “we,” also fine in speech but a bit more formal than on in many contexts.
All three versions are grammatically correct; the choice is mostly about style and nuance.
It doesn’t have to be at the beginning. French word order for time expressions is fairly flexible. All of these are possible:
- Le soir, notre groupe regarde une série et parle de chaque épisode ensemble.
- Notre groupe regarde une série et parle de chaque épisode ensemble le soir.
- Notre groupe, le soir, regarde une série et parle de chaque épisode ensemble. (more marked/emphatic)
Putting Le soir at the beginning is very common when you want to set the time frame first, like “As for the evenings, here’s what happens.”
Putting it at the end (…ensemble le soir) is also natural and sounds a bit closer to the neutral English order.