Breakdown of Le professeur commence souvent par une blague pour deviner si nous sommes fatigués.
Questions & Answers about Le professeur commence souvent par une blague pour deviner si nous sommes fatigués.
In French, commencer par + noun / infinitive is a set expression meaning “to begin by / to start with (as the first step)”.
- Le professeur commence souvent par une blague = The teacher often starts (the class) with a joke.
The implied object is le cours / la leçon: he starts his lesson by telling a joke.
If you say commencer une blague, it means “to begin a joke” (start telling a specific joke), not “to start the class with a joke”. That would focus on the joke itself, not on the structure of the lesson.
Common patterns:
- commencer par une blague – start with a joke (as first activity)
- commencer par expliquer la règle – start by explaining the rule
- commencer par lire le texte – start by reading the text
With commencer, French almost always uses par to express “start with”:
- commencer par une blague – start with a joke
- commencer par l’exercice 3 – start with exercise 3
Commencer avec exists but is much less common and has a slightly different feel. It’s more like “to begin having/using something”, not “this is the first step in a sequence”. In practice, native speakers almost always say:
- On va commencer par une chanson. (very natural)
and not - On va commencer avec une chanson. (understandable but odd/unidiomatic here)
So: with the idea “first step in an activity”, think commencer par, not commencer avec.
In French, simple adverbs of frequency like souvent, toujours, rarement usually go:
- after a conjugated verb in simple tenses.
So in the present tense:
- Le professeur commence souvent par une blague. (natural)
Other acceptable positions:
- Souvent, le professeur commence par une blague. (fronted for emphasis: “Often, the teacher starts with a joke.”)
But these are wrong or unnatural:
- Le professeur souvent commence par une blague. (sounds wrong)
- Le professeur commence par souvent une blague. (ungrammatical)
Rules of thumb:
- Simple tense: subject + verb + adverb + rest
→ Il va souvent au cinéma. - Compound tense: subject + auxiliary + adverb + past participle
→ Il a souvent raconté cette blague.
Yes: pour + infinitive usually expresses purpose: “(in order) to do X”.
- pour deviner si nous sommes fatigués = in order to guess / to figure out if we are tired
More examples:
- Il étudie pour réussir. – He studies (in order) to succeed.
- Je ferme la fenêtre pour ne pas avoir froid. – I close the window so I won’t be cold.
You cannot say:
- pour de deviner (never add de there)
- à deviner si nous sommes fatigués (wrong for purpose)
You could replace pour with afin de for a slightly more formal style:
- … afin de deviner si nous sommes fatigués.
French deviner means “to guess, to figure out, to work out”, often when you don’t know for sure:
- Il raconte une blague pour deviner si nous sommes fatigués.
→ He tells a joke to try to figure out / guess whether we’re tired.
If you used savoir, the nuance would change:
- … pour savoir si nous sommes fatigués.
→ to find out / know if we are tired (more neutral, less “guessing”).
Other common alternatives:
- pour voir si nous sommes fatigués – to “see” if we’re tired (very idiomatic, casual)
- pour tester si nous sommes fatigués – to test if we’re tired
In the original sentence, deviner suggests the teacher is using the students’ reaction to the joke as a kind of indirect test, not a direct question.
In French, the conjunction si (“if / whether”) is never followed by the subjunctive. It always takes the indicative.
So you must say:
- si nous sommes fatigués
and never: - si nous soyons fatigués
The subjunctive appears after certain conjunctions (like bien que, pour que, avant que, etc.), but si is not one of them.
Comparison:
- Je doute que nous soyons fatigués. (subjunctive after que)
- Je me demande si nous sommes fatigués. (indicative after si)
The adjective fatigué agrees with the subject nous in gender and number:
- If the group is all male (or mixed male–female):
→ nous sommes fatigués (masculine plural) - If the group is all female:
→ nous sommes fatiguées (feminine plural)
French default rule:
- Mixed or unknown gender group → use masculine plural.
So in a typical mixed class, fatigués is what you expect. In a class of only female students, a teacher would normally write/say fatiguées.
Yes, in everyday spoken French, on is very common instead of nous:
- Le professeur commence souvent par une blague pour deviner si on est fatigués.
Differences:
- nous
- More formal / written
- Verb always conjugated as nous: nous sommes, nous parlons
- on
- Very common in speech, even in fairly formal contexts
- Verb always in 3rd singular: on est, on parle
- Agreement of adjectives/past participles is still with the real group:
- all women: on est fatiguées
- mixed/men: on est fatigués
In writing (especially in exercises or formal texts), nous is often preferred; in conversation, you’ll hear on much more.
In French, you normally must use an article with nouns, including professions, when they are used as subjects:
- Le professeur commence… (correct)
- Professeur commence… (incorrect in standard French)
You can drop the article only in certain fixed expressions (titles, forms of address):
- Professeur Martin, pouvez-vous venir ? – Professor Martin, can you come?
- Bonjour, Professeur. – Hello, Professor.
But in a regular sentence where “the teacher” is the subject, you say:
- Le professeur parle.
- La professeure parle. (for a female teacher, in modern usage)
Yes, you can say:
- Le prof commence souvent par une blague…
Prof is simply a colloquial / familiar shortening of professeur.
Nuance:
- Le professeur – more neutral, standard, or slightly formal
- Le prof – more informal, everyday speech
In spoken French among students, le prof is extremely common. In formal writing (essays, exams), le professeur is safer.