Learn Hardcore French: Je vais respirer calmement dans le jardin. - I am going to breathe calmly in the garden.

Je vais respirer ≈ I’m going to breathe (plan/intention in the near future).
Je respire ≈ I breathe / I am breathing (present, a current action or a general fact).
Je respirerai ≈ I will breathe (simple future, a bit more distant or neutral).

In everyday spoken French, aller + infinitive is very common when talking about what you’re about to do or planning to do soon, so Je vais respirer calmement sounds very natural and conversational.

Does Je vais respirer ever mean literally I go breathe (like movement), or is it always future?

In modern French, Je vais respirer is almost always understood as near future (I’m going to breathe), not as physical movement.

If you wanted to emphasize movement, you’d normally add a place or another verb:

Je vais dans le jardin pour respirer calmement.
→ I’m going to the garden in order to breathe calmly.

So by itself, Je vais respirer is read as future: I’m going to breathe.

Is respirer a regular verb, and how is it conjugated?

Yes, respirer is a regular -ER verb.

Present tense examples:

Je respire – I breathe
Tu respires – You breathe
Il / Elle respire – He / She breathes
Nous respirons – We breathe
Vous respirez – You breathe (plural/formal)
Ils / Elles respirent – They breathe

In the sentence Je vais respirer, the verb respirer is in its infinitive form, after vais (from aller).

Can respirer take a direct object, like respirer l’air frais?

Yes. Respirer can be:

Intransitive (no direct object):
- Je vais respirer calmement. – I’m going to breathe calmly.
Transitive (with a direct object):
- Je vais respirer l’air frais. – I’m going to breathe the fresh air.

In Je vais respirer calmement dans le jardin, respirer is intransitive; it just describes the act of breathing, and calmement tells you how.

How is the adverb calmement formed, and could we use calme instead?

Calmement is formed from the adjective calme by adding -ment, which is a common way to form adverbs in French:

calme → calmement (calm → calmly)
rapide → rapidement (quick → quickly)
sérieux → sérieusement (serious → seriously)

You can use calme as an adjective, but then it usually describes a noun (or the subject), not the manner of the action:

Je suis calme dans le jardin. – I am calm in the garden.
Je respire, calme, dans le jardin. – I breathe, calm, in the garden. (more literary / descriptive)

In the original sentence, calmement is better because it clearly modifies respirer (how you breathe).

Is the adverb position in respirer calmement fixed, or can it move?

For one short adverb like calmement, the most natural position is right after the verb:

Je vais respirer calmement dans le jardin. ✅

Other possibilities exist, but they change style or emphasis:

Je vais calmement respirer dans le jardin.
– Grammatically possible, but sounds a bit marked/poetic, with more emphasis on calmement.
Je vais respirer dans le jardin, calmement.
– Also correct; calmement feels like an extra comment added at the end.

Neutral, everyday word order is the one you were given: verbe + adverbe + complément de lieu (verb + adverb + place).

Could I say tranquillement instead of calmement, and is there a difference?

Yes, you could say:

Je vais respirer tranquillement dans le jardin.

Both calmement and tranquillement can mean doing something in a calm, peaceful way, but there is a slight nuance:

calmement: stresses calm, lack of agitation (emotionally or physically).
tranquillement: stresses peace, lack of disturbance, often implying you’re not being bothered.

In many contexts they overlap, and both sound natural here.

Why is it dans le jardin and not en le jardin or à le jardin?

French uses dans very often for inside or within a physical place:

dans le jardin – in the garden
dans la maison – in the house
dans la voiture – in the car

En le does not exist; it would contract to au / aux only with à:

à + le → au
à + les → aux

But à is not the right preposition here; for a literal in a garden, dans is standard:

Je vais respirer calmement dans le jardin. ✅
Je vais respirer calmement au jardin. – possible, but more literary/old-fashioned and can feel a bit stylistic.

Why do we say le jardin and not just jardin without an article?

In French, you almost always need an article before a common noun:

le jardin – the garden
un jardin – a garden
mon jardin – my garden
ce jardin – this garden

Unlike English, French generally does not allow bare nouns in this kind of sentence. So you cannot say:

✗ Je vais respirer calmement dans jardin.

You must pick some determiner: le, un, mon, ce, etc. Here, le jardin typically means a specific garden that both speaker and listener can identify.

How do I know that jardin is masculine, and does that affect anything in this sentence?

Jardin is masculine, so you use:

le jardin, not la jardin.
un jardin, not une jardin.

There is no easy universal rule to guess gender; you mostly have to learn it with the noun. Some endings have tendencies, but -in words are mixed.

In this sentence, the gender affects:

the article: le (masculine singular)
any adjective that might describe it:
- un grand jardin – a big garden (masculine form grand)

Can I move dans le jardin to the beginning of the sentence?

Yes. French allows quite a bit of flexibility with place expressions for emphasis or style:

Dans le jardin, je vais respirer calmement.
– In the garden, I’m going to breathe calmly.

This version emphasizes the garden more. The original order:

Je vais respirer calmement dans le jardin.

emphasizes the action more naturally and is the most neutral word order.

How is this sentence pronounced, and are there any important liaisons or silent letters?

A careful standard pronunciation (IPA) would be roughly:

[ʒə vɛ ʁɛspiʁe kalməmɑ̃ dɑ̃ lə ʒaʁdɛ̃]

Key points:

Je → [ʒə] (often shortened to something like [ʒ] in fast speech).
vais → [vɛ] (final s is silent).
respirer → final -er pronounced [e], like -ay in day, not like English er.
calmement → [kalməmɑ̃]:
- final -ent is silent as usual for many adverbs in -ment.
dans le → [dɑ̃ lə]:
- s in dans is silent.
jardin → [ʒaʁdɛ̃]:
- final -n is not pronounced; it nasalizes the vowel [ɛ̃].

There is no obligatory liaison between vais and respirer in normal speech, and most speakers would pronounce them separately: [vɛ ʁɛspiʁe], not [vɛzʁɛspiʁe].