Learn Hardcore French: Ses cousins habitent déjà à l’étranger et l’aident à pratiquer la langue. - Her cousins already live abroad and help her practice the language.

Ses cousins = his cousins or her cousins (we don’t know the gender from the sentence alone)
Leurs cousins = their cousins (cousins belonging to several people)

Here, there is only one person whose cousins are being talked about (the same person as l’ in l’aident), so French uses ses, not leurs.

Why is cousins masculine plural? How would I say “female cousins”?

Cousins here is the masculine plural form. In French:

un cousin = a male cousin
une cousine = a female cousin
des cousins = (at least one male) cousins, or gender-mixed group
des cousines = only female cousins

So if they were all female, you could say:

Ses cousines habitent déjà à l’étranger…
His / her female cousins already live abroad…

What’s the difference between habiter and vivre here?

Both habiter and vivre can be translated as “to live”, but they’re not always interchangeable.

Habiter focuses on where someone lives (the residence/place).
- Ses cousins habitent à Paris. – His/her cousins live in Paris.
Vivre is more general: to live (one’s life, existence, lifestyle), and can also mean to experience.
- Ses cousins vivent à Paris. – grammatically OK and also common, but slightly more neutral / broader.

In this sentence, habiter fits very well because we’re talking about living in a place: living abroad.

Typical patterns:

habiter à + city / country
vivre à / en / au is also used, but habiter strongly links to the idea of residence.

Why is it déjà after the verb (habitent déjà) and not somewhere else?

In simple tenses, French adverbs like déjà usually go right after the conjugated verb:

Ils habitent déjà à l’étranger. – They already live abroad.
Ils mangent déjà. – They are already eating.

Other possible positions:

At the beginning for emphasis:
- Déjà, ses cousins habitent à l’étranger. – Already, his/her cousins live abroad (stylistic/emphatic)
But directly after the verb is the most natural and neutral: habitent déjà.

Why is it à l’étranger and not en étranger or just étranger?

L’étranger here is a noun meaning “abroad / foreign countries”, not the adjective étranger (foreign).

à l’étranger = abroad (literally: at the foreign [place])
- Il vit à l’étranger. – He lives abroad.

You don’t say en étranger in this meaning.

Compare:

étranger as an adjective:
- une langue étrangère – a foreign language
l’étranger as a noun:
- partir à l’étranger – to go abroad

So à l’étranger is the fixed, idiomatic way to say “abroad”.

What does l’ in l’aident stand for, and why is it before the verb?

L’ is a direct object pronoun meaning “him” or “her” (or it in other contexts). It replaces the person being helped.

The full underlying idea is:

Ses cousins habitent déjà à l’étranger et ils l’aident à pratiquer la langue.

In French, object pronouns go before the conjugated verb:

Ils aident Paul. → Ils l’aident. (They help him.)
Ils aident Marie. → Ils l’aident. (They help her.)

Because aident starts with a vowel, le / la becomes l’ (elision):

le aident / la aident → l’aident

So l’ refers back to the person whose cousins they are (the same “his/her” from ses).

Why is it aider à pratiquer and not just aider pratiquer?

With an infinitive verb, French normally uses this pattern:

aider quelqu’un à + infinitive

So:

Ils l’aident à pratiquer la langue. – They help him/her to practice the language.
J’aide mon ami à trouver un travail. – I help my friend (to) find a job.

You must include the preposition à before the infinitive in this structure:

✅ aider à pratiquer
❌ aider pratiquer (incorrect)

Think of it as a fixed pattern: aider à + [verb] (when “help to do something”).

Why is it pratiquer la langue and not simply parler la langue?

Both are possible but the meaning is slightly different:

parler la langue = to speak the language (use it in conversation)
pratiquer la langue = to practice the language, i.e. use it to improve, train, and keep it active

Here, the idea is that the cousins help him/her improve and train the language, not just speak it incidentally, so pratiquer matches that “learning/practice” idea more clearly.

Examples:

Je parle la langue tous les jours. – I speak the language every day.
Je pratique la langue avec des natifs. – I practice the language with natives (for learning).

Why do we say la langue (with la) instead of just pratiquer langue?

In French, nouns almost always need an article (definite, indefinite, or partitive). You cannot usually leave it out like in English.

la langue = the language
French normally says:
- parler la langue – speak the language
- apprendre la langue – learn the language
- pratiquer la langue – practice the language

Leaving out the article:

❌ pratiquer langue – incorrect in standard French
✅ pratiquer la langue – correct

This definite article (la) is very common with languages.

How is l’aident pronounced, and is there a liaison?

L’aident is pronounced roughly like [lɛd] (similar to “led” in English, but shorter and clearer).

Details:

l’ is just a light “l” sound before a vowel.
aident sounds like [ɛd] in the present tense (3rd person plural form ils aident is pronounced like il aide in spoken French).

There is no extra /z/ sound here; that would appear in something like ils aident à… (with liaison: [il‿zɛd]).
In l’aident, you simply link l + aident: [lɛd].