Breakdown of Le professeur donne un exemple de citoyen actif qui défend ses voisins.
Questions & Answers about Le professeur donne un exemple de citoyen actif qui défend ses voisins.
In French, after certain nouns like exemple, you often drop the article when you mean “a typical example of this kind of thing.”
- un exemple de citoyen actif
= “an example of an active citizen” (a typical representative of that category)
Here de + noun (no article) expresses a type or category in a general way.
Other possibilities:
- un exemple d’un citoyen actif – grammatically possible, but heavier and less natural; it sounds like “an example of one active citizen” rather than of the type.
- un exemple du citoyen actif – “an example of the active citizen” (referring to some specific citizen already known in the context).
So the original sentence uses the most natural, general form: un exemple de + noun without article.
Most French adjectives normally come after the noun:
- un citoyen actif – literally “a citizen active.”
Only certain common adjectives (like grand, petit, bon, mauvais, beau, jeune, vieux, nouveau, ancien in some meanings, etc.) usually come before the noun.
Actif is not one of those; it keeps the “standard” position after the noun.
Putting it before (un actif citoyen) would sound odd or poetic at best.
In Le professeur donne un exemple de citoyen actif qui défend ses voisins, the qui refers to citoyen actif, not le professeur.
Reasons:
- Proximity: In French, a relative clause generally attaches to the nearest suitable noun before it. Here that is citoyen actif.
- Meaning: An “active citizen who defends his neighbors” fits the sense much better than “a professor who defends his neighbors” (though that could be said, it’s not what this structure expresses).
If you wanted the professor to be the one defending the neighbors, you would normally rephrase, for example:
- Le professeur, qui défend ses voisins, donne un exemple de citoyen actif.
(The professor, who defends his neighbors, gives an example of an active citizen.)
In relative clauses:
- qui is used as the subject of the verb in the relative clause.
- que is used as the direct object of the verb in the relative clause.
Here, in qui défend ses voisins:
- qui is the subject of défend.
- ses voisins is the direct object.
So you must use qui, not que.
Compare:
un citoyen actif qui défend ses voisins
(subject: qui = the citizen, verb: défend, object: ses voisins)un citoyen actif que ses voisins admirent
(subject: ses voisins, verb: admirent, object: que = the citizen)
Grammatically, ses refers back to the subject of the relative clause, that is the citoyen actif (via qui).
So ses voisins means the citizen’s neighbors, not the professor’s neighbors.
Structure:
- citoyen actif → qui (relative pronoun referring to this citizen) → défend ses voisins
⇒ ses = the citizen’s.
If you needed to be absolutely explicit, you could say:
- …un citoyen actif qui défend les voisins de son quartier.
(an active citizen who defends the neighbors in his neighborhood)
Because one person normally has several neighbors, French uses the plural:
- un citoyen actif – one active citizen
- ses voisins – his (or her) neighbors (more than one)
This is just natural meaning, not a grammar rule about agreement.
You could make it singular (e.g. son voisin) if you really wanted to emphasize one specific neighbor, but the normal idea is “neighbors” in general.
French possessive adjectives agree with the thing possessed, not the possessor:
- voisin (neighbor) is masculine singular → son voisin
- voisins (neighbors) is masculine plural → ses voisins
- voisine (female neighbor) is feminine singular → sa voisine
Here, voisins is plural, so you must use ses.
As for leur / leurs:
- leur voisin / leurs voisins are used when the possessor is plural (“their neighbor(s)”).
- Our possessor (the citoyen actif) is singular, so we cannot use leur / leurs.
Only the words that must agree in gender would change:
- un citoyen actif → une citoyenne active
The rest stays the same:
- Le professeur donne un exemple de citoyenne active qui défend ses voisins.
Qui and ses do not change with gender; they depend on number and function, not on masculine vs feminine.
Traditionally, professeur is grammatically masculine:
- le professeur – “the professor” (can refer to a man or a woman)
In modern usage, especially in France, you’ll also see:
- la professeure – explicitly feminine form
- informally, la prof – for a female teacher
So, talking about a woman, you might see either:
- Le professeur donne un exemple… (masculine as a neutral grammatical gender)
- La professeure donne un exemple… (clearly marked as female)
- La prof donne un exemple… (informal, spoken style)
It’s not wrong, but it sounds less natural and a bit heavier than the original.
Nuance:
Le professeur donne un exemple de citoyen actif…
→ focuses on the type: “an example of an active citizen (as a kind of person).”Le professeur donne un exemple d’un citoyen actif…
→ sounds more like “an example involving one active citizen” or “an example taken from a particular active citizen.”
In most teaching or explanatory contexts, French speakers strongly prefer the article-less form: un exemple de citoyen actif.
The verb défendre has two main uses:
- To defend / protect / speak in favor of
- défendre ses voisins – to defend/protect one’s neighbors (used here)
- To forbid / prohibit – but only with the structure défendre à quelqu’un de + infinitif
- défendre à quelqu’un de fumer – to forbid someone to smoke
In qui défend ses voisins, the structure is clearly the first meaning (defend/protect).
To mean “forbid,” the sentence would need a different grammar pattern, like:
- qui leur défend de sortir – who forbids them to go out.
So in your sentence, there’s no real risk of confusion: it clearly means “who defends his neighbors.”