Breakdown of Marie veut faire de la recherche en France pendant les vacances.
Questions & Answers about Marie veut faire de la recherche en France pendant les vacances.
In French, when one verb follows another, the second verb is usually in the infinitive form (the dictionary form).
- vouloir (to want) + infinitive:
- Marie veut faire... = Marie wants to do...
- Je veux manger. = I want to eat.
You cannot say veut recherche because recherche here is a noun, not a verb.
Why not rechercher?
- rechercher is a verb meaning to search for / to look for, often in quite concrete contexts (to look for a person, information, a lost item, etc.).
- For academic or scientific research, French normally uses:
- faire de la recherche = to do research
- or faire des recherches (see below).
So Marie veut faire de la recherche is the natural French way to say Marie wants to do research (academic/professional sense).
Literally:
- faire = to do / to make
- de la recherche = some research
So faire de la recherche = to do (some) research.
Usage:
- Used especially for academic, scientific, or professional research:
- Il fait de la recherche en biologie. = He does research in biology.
- Elle veut faire de la recherche médicale. = She wants to do medical research.
English normally just says to do research, without some, but French usually needs that de la (the partitive article) before an uncountable noun.
In French, when you talk about an uncountable thing in a general, non-specific way (some water, some bread, some research), you usually use the partitive article:
- de la before feminine singular nouns:
- de la recherche (some research)
- de la musique (some music)
- du before masculine singular nouns:
- du pain (some bread)
- des before plural countable nouns:
- des pommes (some apples)
So:
- faire de la recherche = to do (some) research
You cannot drop de la here; faire recherche is incorrect.
Both are correct, but there is a nuance:
faire de la recherche
- Focus on research as a general activity or profession.
- Often used in academic/professional contexts.
- Example: Il fait de la recherche en physique.
- He does research in physics (that’s his work/field).
faire des recherches
- Treats recherches as countable efforts or investigations.
- Often means to look up information, to investigate, to do some searches.
- Example: J’ai fait des recherches sur Internet.
- I did (some) research / I looked things up on the internet.
In many everyday contexts, faire des recherches is more common, but in formal/academic contexts, faire de la recherche (often with en + field) is very natural:
- faire de la recherche en France
- faire de la recherche en chimie
For countries, French uses different prepositions:
- en is used with:
- feminine countries: en France, en Italie, en Chine
- countries starting with a vowel sound: en Iran, en Afghanistan
- au is used with masculine countries:
- au Canada, au Japon, au Mexique
- aux is used with plural countries:
- aux États-Unis, aux Pays-Bas
France is grammatically feminine, so:
- en France = in France
à France is incorrect in this context.
pendant means during.
- pendant les vacances = during the holidays / during the vacation
If you remove pendant and just say:
- Marie veut faire de la recherche les vacances.
this is incorrect. You need a preposition like pendant or pour.
Some common options:
- pendant les vacances = during the holidays (time period)
- pour les vacances = for the holidays (for that occasion, for that period)
- en vacances = (while) on vacation
- Marie veut faire de la recherche en France pendant les vacances.
- She wants to do research in France during the school/university holidays.
- Marie veut aller en France en vacances.
- She wants to go to France on vacation.
- Marie veut faire de la recherche en France pendant les vacances.
So pendant is needed here to mean during.
In practice, vacances is almost always plural in French when it means holidays / vacation:
- les vacances d’été = the summer holidays
- les vacances de Noël = the Christmas holidays
- Je pars en vacances. = I’m going on vacation.
la vacance (singular) exists but has a different, specialized meaning (a vacancy, an empty post), not a holiday.
So:
- Correct: pendant les vacances
- Incorrect for holidays: pendant la vacance
French very often uses the present tense to talk about future events, especially when the time is clear from context:
- Demain, je vais à Paris. = Tomorrow, I’m going to Paris.
- Ce soir, nous mangeons au restaurant. = Tonight, we’re eating at the restaurant.
In your sentence:
- The future time is specified by pendant les vacances, so using the present veut is normal:
- Marie veut faire de la recherche en France pendant les vacances.
You could also use the future, but it sounds less natural here:
- Marie voudra faire de la recherche… (will want) – grammatically correct, but less commonly said in this kind of simple statement.
vouloir (to want) is irregular in the present tense:
- je veux – I want
- tu veux – you want (singular, informal)
- il / elle / on veut – he / she / one wants
- nous voulons – we want
- vous voulez – you want (plural or formal)
- ils / elles veulent – they want
In Marie veut faire de la recherche…:
- veut is the 3rd person singular (he/she/it wants).
- It matches Marie (she).
You have three common options, from most casual to most formal:
Intonation only (spoken)
- Marie veut faire de la recherche en France pendant les vacances ?
- Just raise your voice at the end.
Est-ce que (neutral, very common)
- Est-ce que Marie veut faire de la recherche en France pendant les vacances ?
Inversion (more formal / written)
- Marie veut-elle faire de la recherche en France pendant les vacances ?
All three are correct; in everyday speech, Est-ce que… or simple intonation is most typical.
To make a sentence negative in French, you usually wrap ne … pas around the conjugated verb:
- Affirmative: Marie veut faire de la recherche…
- Negative: Marie ne veut pas faire de la recherche…
So the full negative sentence is:
- Marie ne veut pas faire de la recherche en France pendant les vacances.
In spoken French, many people drop ne and just say:
- Marie veut pas faire de la recherche…
(very common orally, but informal and not standard in writing).