Learn Hardcore French: Le responsable du service veut connaître sa motivation et son expérience. - The manager of the department wants to know her motivation and experience.

Le responsable du service veut connaître sa motivation et son expérience.

The manager of the department wants to know her motivation and experience.

Breakdown of Le responsable du service veut connaître sa motivation et son expérience.

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Questions & Answers about Le responsable du service veut connaître sa motivation et son expérience.

What does le responsable du service literally mean, and what is the function of du here?

Le responsable du service literally means “the person in charge of the department/service”.

responsable here is used as a noun: “person in charge / manager / head”.
le marks it as grammatically masculine: “the (male) person in charge” (more on gender below).
du is the contraction of de + le:
- de = “of”
- le = “the” (masculine singular)
- de + le → du

So du service = “of the department / of the service”, and le responsable du service = “the head of the department.”

Why is it le responsable and not la responsable? How do you know the gender?

Grammatically, responsable can be:

masculine: le responsable
feminine: la responsable

The form responsable itself does not change; only the article (le / la) shows the grammatical gender.

In this sentence, we see le, so the text presents the responsable as grammatically masculine (either the person is a man, or the writer is using the traditional “default masculine” for a role).

If the responsible person is explicitly a woman and we want to show that, we would say:

La responsable du service veut connaître…

Modern usage often tries to match the real person’s gender (when known), but you will still see masculine used generically in many texts.

Can responsable refer to a person of any gender, or is it only masculine?

Responsable as a noun can refer to any gender; the article changes:

un responsable / le responsable = a (male) manager / the (male) manager
une responsable / la responsable = a (female) manager / the (female) manager

Spoken French often doesn’t clearly distinguish le responsable vs la responsable, because le and la can sound very similar in fast speech, and responsable itself doesn’t change.

So yes, responsable is “epicene”: it has the same form for masculine and feminine; only the article (and sometimes adjectives around it) show the gender.

What exactly does du service mean? Is service the same as “service” in English?

Service in French has several meanings. In this sentence, du service most naturally means:

“of the department / of the unit / of the service” (within a company or organization)

For example:

le service des ressources humaines = the Human Resources department
le service informatique = the IT department

So le responsable du service is the person in charge of that department.

French service can also mean:

“service” in the sense of help / assistance (e.g. un bon service),
or service in a restaurant (le service est compris = service is included).

Context tells you it’s “department” here.

Why is it veut connaître and not veut savoir? What’s the difference between connaître and savoir?

Both connaître and savoir relate to “knowing,” but they’re used differently:

Connaître:

Usually “to be familiar with / to know (be acquainted with)”
Typically followed by a noun:
- connaître une personne = to know a person
- connaître la ville = to know / be familiar with the city
- connaître ses motivations, son expérience = to know his/her motivations, experience

Savoir:

More like “to know (a fact) / to know how”
Often followed by:
- a clause: savoir que… (to know that…),
- a question word: savoir pourquoi, comment, où…,
- or an infinitive: savoir nager (to know how to swim).

In this sentence, we have direct objects that are nouns (sa motivation, son expérience), and the idea is more “to know (have knowledge of) these things about the person.” Connaître is the natural verb:

Le responsable du service veut connaître sa motivation et son expérience.

If we wanted to use savoir, we’d usually add a clause, for example:

Le responsable du service veut savoir quelles sont ses motivations et quelle est son expérience.
- “The head of the department wants to know what his/her motivations are and what his/her experience is.”

So veut connaître fits the simple verb + noun pattern here.

Why is connaître in the infinitive after veut?

In French, when you have a verb like vouloir (“to want”) followed by another action, the second verb is usually in the infinitive (the basic dictionary form).

Pattern:

[subject] + vouloir (conjugated) + [infinitive]

Examples:

Je veux manger. = I want to eat.
Nous voulons partir. = We want to leave.
Il veut savoir. = He wants to know.

So in this sentence:

Le responsable du service = subject
veut = vouloir conjugated (3rd person singular, present)
connaître = infinitive

Le responsable du service veut connaître…
= “The head of the department wants to know…”

Who does sa refer to? How can sa be feminine if we might be talking about a man?

In French, possessive adjectives (mon, ma, mes, ton, ta, tes, son, sa, ses) agree with the thing possessed, not with the owner’s gender.

Here:

sa motivation
son expérience

Both motivation and expérience are grammatically feminine nouns.

However:

sa is the feminine-singular form of son/sa/ses (his/her/its).
son is the masculine-singular form and also the form used before a vowel sound (even with feminine nouns).

So:

sa motivation = “his/her motivation”
son expérience = “his/her experience” (even though expérience is feminine)

The gender of the owner (the candidate or employee) is not visible here. Sa/son could refer to:

a man,
a woman,
or a person of unknown gender.

We only know that the possessed nouns (“motivation” and “experience”) are singular, and that they are grammatically feminine.

Why is it sa motivation but son expérience if both nouns are feminine?

This is a classic French “trick” to avoid awkward pronunciation.

Rules:

sa = used before a feminine singular noun starting with a consonant
son =
- masculine singular before any letter, and also
- used before a feminine singular noun starting with a vowel or silent h, to make pronunciation smoother

Here:

motivation: feminine, starts with m (a consonant)
- → sa motivation
expérience: feminine, starts with e (a vowel)
- → you would normally expect sa expérience, but it is hard to say.
- French uses son expérience instead.

So:

sa motivation (feminine noun starting with consonant)
son expérience (feminine noun starting with vowel, but we use son to make it easier to pronounce)

Both still mean “his/her motivation” and “his/her experience.” The difference is purely grammatical and phonetic, not about the owner’s gender.

Are motivation and expérience always feminine in French? Does the -tion / -ence ending tell us something?

Yes, in standard French:

motivation is feminine: la motivation
expérience is feminine: l’expérience

The endings are a helpful clue:

Nouns ending in -tion (like motivation, situation, question, information) are almost always feminine:
- la motivation, la situation, la question
Many, though not all, nouns ending in -ence / -anse / -ense are also feminine:
- la différence, la patience, la tendance, la dépense
- and here, l’expérience

So the forms sa motivation and son expérience (where sa/son agree with feminine nouns) are consistent with these endings.

Could we say ses motivations et son expérience instead? Would that change the meaning?

Yes, you can say:

Le responsable du service veut connaître ses motivations et son expérience.

Differences in nuance:

sa motivation = “his/her motivation” (seen as one general motivation or overall drive)
ses motivations = “his/her motivations” (several reasons, or several types of motivation)

Using the plural ses motivations can suggest:

you’re interested in multiple reasons: why the person applied, what drives them, etc.

The rest stays the same. Both versions are grammatically correct; the choice is mainly about how you conceptualize “motivation” (as one thing or several).

Why is the possessive repeated (sa motivation et son expérience) instead of just saying sa motivation et expérience?

In French, it is more natural and clearer to repeat the possessive when the two nouns are not very closely paired or when they differ in gender/number:

sa motivation et son expérience (two separate ideas, and different possessive forms)
ses compétences et ses qualités (repeating ses)

You can sometimes drop the second possessive with tightly linked pairs, especially in speech, but it’s less common and can sound a bit heavy or ambiguous:

sa patience et gentillesse is possible, but most people would prefer:
sa patience et sa gentillesse

In this sentence, because you need sa for motivation and son for expérience, repeating each form is both grammatically correct and clear:

sa motivation et son expérience

How is this sentence pronounced? Are there any important liaisons or silent letters?

Approximate pronunciation (in IPA):

Le responsable du service veut connaître sa motivation et son expérience.
→ /lə ʁɛspɔ̃sab(ə) dy sɛʁvis vø kɔ.nɛtʁ sa mɔ.ti.va.sjɔ̃ e sɔ̃n ɛk.spe.ʁjɑ̃s/

Key points:

Silent letters:
- Final -e in le, responsable, service, sa, motivation, son is generally silent.
- Final -t in veut is silent by itself: /vø/.
Liaisons:
- Often pronounced:
  - du‿service → /dy.zɛʁvis/ (the s of service is already pronounced, so no extra consonant, but there is smooth linking).
  - et‿son: sometimes a very light link, but no extra consonant is added.
- There is no obligatory liaison between veut and connaître.
Nasal vowels:
- responsable: -spon- has a nasal /spɔ̃/.
- son: on → /ɔ̃/.
- expérience: -ance → /ɑ̃s/.
Word stress:
- French stress is mostly on the last syllable of a group, so you don’t stress each word separately the way you might in English. The rhythm is more even.