Learn Hardcore French: Lundi prochain, la classe va rencontrer une ingénieure et une avocate. - Next Monday, the class is going to meet a female engineer and a female lawyer.

Placing the time expression (Lundi prochain) at the beginning is very common and slightly emphasizes when it will happen. Putting it at the end is also correct and neutral. This is mostly a matter of style, not grammar.

What’s the difference between lundi prochain and prochain lundi? Are they both correct?

The usual, natural order is lundi prochain (“next Monday”).

Prochain lundi is understood but sounds less natural and more formal/literary; you’ll hardly ever hear it in everyday speech.

So use:

lundi prochain = next Monday (normal, common)
avoid prochain lundi in ordinary conversation.

Why is there no article before lundi? In other sentences I see le lundi.

In French:

Lundi alone (no article) is used for a specific Monday:
- Lundi prochain = next Monday
- Lundi, je pars. = (This) Monday, I’m leaving.
Le lundi is used for a repeated/habitual action:
- Le lundi, j’ai cours de français. = On Mondays, I have French class (every Monday).

In your sentence, they mean one specific Monday (next Monday), so there’s no le.

Why is classe feminine (la classe)?

Grammatical gender in French is mostly arbitrary and must be memorized. Classe happens to be a feminine noun, so it takes:

la classe (the class)
une classe (a class)
cette classe (this class)

There’s no rule tying its gender to the real-world gender of the students; it’s just part of the word’s dictionary form: (n. f.) for nom féminin.

The students are many, but the verb is singular: la classe va. Why not la classe vont?

In French, the verb agrees with the grammatical subject, not with the idea of “many people inside it”.

La classe is singular → la classe va (the class is going).
If you use a plural noun, you must use a plural verb:
- Les élèves vont rencontrer… = The students are going to meet…

So even though a class is made of several people, classe itself is a singular word, so the verb is singular: va.

Why is the future expressed with va rencontrer and not just rencontrera?

French has two common ways to talk about the future here:

Le futur proche (near future):
- la classe va rencontrer = the class is going to meet
  Form: aller (conjugated) + infinitive (rencontrer)
Le futur simple:
- la classe rencontrera = the class will meet

Both are grammatically correct. Futur proche (with va rencontrer) is very common in spoken French and often feels more immediate or planned, like English “is going to meet”.

Why is it rencontrer and not se rencontrer?

Rencontrer quelqu’un = to meet someone (one side is the subject, the other is the object).
- La classe va rencontrer une ingénieure.
Se rencontrer = to meet each other (mutual action between people who are both subjects).
- Ils vont se rencontrer. = They are going to meet (each other).

Here, la classe is meeting une ingénieure et une avocate, who are objects of the verb. It’s not mutual “each other”, so the correct form is rencontrer, not se rencontrer.

Why do we say une ingénieure and not un ingénieur if the profession is “engineer”?

Modern French often marks the feminine form of professions when referring to a woman:

un ingénieur = a (male or unspecified) engineer
une ingénieure = a female engineer

Both forms exist today; you will still see un ingénieur used for women in some contexts (especially older or more conservative ones), but une ingénieure is now widely used to make the feminine explicit.

Note the spelling: adding -e at the end (often written ingénieure) indicates the feminine.

What about une avocate? How is that formed from un avocat?

For this profession:

un avocat = a (male or unspecified) lawyer
une avocate = a female lawyer

The feminine is formed by adding -e and pronouncing the final consonant:

masculine: avocat [a-vo-KA] (final t usually silent)
feminine: avocate [a-vo-KAT] (final t pronounced)

Again, using une avocate makes it clear the lawyer is a woman.

If there are two people being met, why is the verb not plural, like vont rencontrer?

The number of objects (people being met) does not affect the verb form. The verb only agrees with the subject of the sentence.

Subject: la classe (singular) → va (singular)
Objects: une ingénieure et une avocate (two people, but that doesn’t change the verb)

To get a plural verb, you would need a plural subject, e.g. les classes vont rencontrer…

Why is it rencontrer une ingénieure et une avocate and not rencontrer avec une ingénieure et une avocate?

In French, the verb rencontrer is direct: you meet someone without a preposition:

rencontrer quelqu’un = to meet someone

Using avec (“with”) here would be ungrammatical: ✗ rencontrer avec quelqu’un is wrong.

So you say:

La classe va rencontrer une ingénieure et une avocate. not
✗ La classe va rencontrer avec une ingénieure et une avocate.

Why is there a comma after Lundi prochain?

When you move a time expression to the front of the sentence for emphasis, French usually separates it with a comma:

Lundi prochain, la classe va rencontrer…

This comma marks a short pause in speech. If you place the time expression at the end instead, you don’t use a comma:

La classe va rencontrer… lundi prochain.