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Je trouve ses blagues un peu fatigantes quand la journée a déjà été longue.

Je trouve ses blagues un peu fatigantes quand la journée a déjà été longue.
I find his jokes a bit tiring when the day has already been long.

Breakdown of Je trouve ses blagues un peu fatigantes quand la journée a déjà été longue.

je
I
être
to be
avoir
to have
déjà
already
quand
when
long
long
trouver
to find
un peu
a little
la journée
the day
ses
his
fatigant
tiring
la blague
the joke
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Questions & Answers about Je trouve ses blagues un peu fatigantes quand la journée a déjà été longue.

In this sentence, what does je trouve mean? Is it more like I think or I find?

In this structure, je trouve means I find [something] [adjective], i.e. I think [something] is [adjective].

The pattern is:

  • Je trouve + noun + adjective
    • Je trouve ses blagues fatigantes.
      = I find his/her jokes tiring / I think his/her jokes are tiring.

It does not mean “I physically find” (as in “I find my keys”). For that, French usually has:

  • Je trouve mes clés. = I find my keys. (physically)
  • Je trouve ses blagues fatigantes. = I find his jokes tiring. (opinion / evaluation)

You can compare:

  • Je pense que ses blagues sont fatigantes.
    vs.
  • Je trouve ses blagues fatigantes.

Both express an opinion, but je trouve often feels a bit more subjective or evaluative (“I find them…”) than the more neutral je pense que (“I think that…”).

Why is it fatigantes and not fatiguant or fatiguées?

Because fatigantes is agreeing in gender and number with blagues and uses the adjective that means tiring, not tired.

  1. Agreement
    • une blague = feminine singular
    • des blagues = feminine plural

The adjective fatigant (tiring) follows regular agreement:

  • Masculine singular: fatigant
  • Feminine singular: fatigante
  • Masculine plural: fatigants
  • Feminine plural: fatigantes

Since blagues is feminine plural, you must use fatigantes.

  1. Meaning
    • fatigant / fatigante / fatigants / fatigantes = tiring, exhausting (something that makes you tired)
    • fatigué / fatiguée / fatigués / fatiguées = tired (a person or animal who is tired)

So:

  • ses blagues sont fatigantes = his/her jokes are tiring
  • je suis fatigué(e) = I am tired

Fatiguées would mean tired jokes, which doesn’t make sense. The intended meaning is “tiring jokes”, so fatigantes is correct.

What is the exact difference between fatigant and fatigué?

  • fatigant(e) describes something (or someone) that causes fatigue, that makes you tired.

    • Ce travail est fatigant. = This work is tiring.
    • Ses blagues sont fatigantes. = His/her jokes are tiring.

  • fatigué(e) describes someone who feels tired.

    • Je suis fatigué. = I am tired.
    • Ils sont fatigués. = They are tired.

In your sentence, the jokes are not tired; they are tiring. So French uses the -ant / -ante form: fatigantes.

Why is it ses blagues and not ces blagues?

Because ses is a possessive adjective, while ces is a demonstrative adjective.

  • ses blagues = his/her/their jokes (jokes that belong to or are told by one person previously mentioned)
  • ces blagues = these / those jokes (pointing to some jokes, without indicating whose they are)

Forms:

  • son / sa / ses = his / her / its (depending on the gender and number of the noun, not the owner)

    • sa blague = his/her joke (one joke, feminine)
    • ses blagues = his/her jokes (plural)

  • ce / cet / cette / ces = this / that / these / those

    • cette blague = this/that joke
    • ces blagues = these/those jokes

The French sentence is specifically about someone’s jokes (the jokes of a particular person), so ses blagues is the natural choice.

Why is it la journée here, and what is the difference between jour and journée?

French distinguishes between le jour and la journée:

  1. le jour (masculine)

    • A day as a unit / date / count:
      • deux jours = two days
      • quel jour sommes-nous ? = what day is it?
    • More neutral, like the English word day.

  2. la journée (feminine)

    • The duration / course of the day, how it feels, how it went:
      • bonne journée ! = have a good day!
      • Ma journée a été difficile. = My day was difficult.
    • Often used with adjectives like longue, bonne, mauvaise, chargée.

In your sentence:

  • quand la journée a déjà été longue
    Focuses on the length and experience of the whole day (it felt long, tiring).

La journée is feminine simply because journée is a feminine noun; in French, grammatical gender is mostly arbitrary and must be memorised.

Why do we use a déjà été longue (passé composé) and not était longue or est longue?

a déjà été longue is the passé composé of être. Here it presents the day as a completed period that has already been long by the time the jokes happen.

  • quand la journée a déjà été longue
    = when the day has already been long (up to that point)

Comparisons:

  • quand la journée est longue
    = when the day is long (more general, present-time description)

  • quand la journée était longue (imparfait)
    = when the day was long (background description in the past; could be used in a story about past habits)

The original a déjà été suggests:

  • A specific situation: on a given day, once it has already been long, his jokes tire me.
  • The idea “by that time, the whole day has (already) been long”.

You could also express the idea differently, for example:

  • Après une longue journée, je trouve ses blagues un peu fatigantes. = After a long day, I find his jokes a bit tiring.

That uses a more neutral structure instead of a déjà été.

Can the quand-clause go at the beginning of the sentence instead of at the end?

Yes. In French, you can put the quand-clause either before or after the main clause.

Both are correct and natural:

  • Je trouve ses blagues un peu fatigantes quand la journée a déjà été longue.
  • Quand la journée a déjà été longue, je trouve ses blagues un peu fatigantes.

When the quand-clause comes first, you normally add a comma after it. The meaning stays the same; only the emphasis and rhythm change slightly.

Could we replace ses blagues with a pronoun and say Je les trouve un peu fatigantes?

Yes, that is grammatically correct and idiomatic, but it presupposes that blagues has already been mentioned.

  • Je trouve ses blagues un peu fatigantes.
    = I find his/her jokes a bit tiring. (explicit mention of ses blagues)

  • Je les trouve un peu fatigantes.
    = I find them a bit tiring. (the listener must already know you are talking about the jokes)

Here, les is a direct object pronoun replacing ses blagues:

  • Je trouve ses blagues fatigantes. → Je les trouve fatigantes.

Pronoun placement rule:

  • The object pronoun (les) comes before the conjugated verb (trouve).

So:
Je les trouve un peu fatigantes quand la journée a déjà été longue.
is fully correct, but only if “les” clearly refers to ses blagues in context.

Why does un peu come before fatigantes?

In French, adverbs of degree like très, trop, assez, un peu, tellement usually go before the adjective they modify.

Pattern:

  • un peu + adjective
    • un peu fatigantes = a bit tiring
  • très + adjective
    • très fatigantes = very tiring
  • trop + adjective
    • trop fatigantes = too tiring

So un peu fatigantes follows the standard order adverb + adjective.

You could also expand it:

  • un peu trop fatigantes = a bit too tiring
What nuance does déjà add in quand la journée a déjà été longue? Could we leave it out?

déjà means already, and it adds the idea “by that time, it’s already been long enough”.

  • quand la journée a été longue
    = when the day has been long

  • quand la journée a déjà été longue
    = when the day has already been long (you already feel the length; you’ve had enough)

Leaving déjà out is grammatically fine:

  • Je trouve ses blagues un peu fatigantes quand la journée a été longue.

But with déjà, the sentence suggests that the speaker is already tired from the day, so the jokes feel even more tiring. It adds a small emotional nuance of “on top of everything else”.

How do you pronounce trouve, blagues, fatigantes, and journée?

Approximate standard French pronunciations (IPA + rough English guide):

  • trouve → /tʁuv/

    • Roughly: “troov” (with a French guttural r; final e is silent)

  • blagues → /blaɡ/

    • Roughly: “blag” (final -ues is silent; only the g is heard)

  • fatigantes → /fatiɡɑ̃t/

    • Roughly: “fa-tee-gahn(t)”
    • The -es at the end is silent; you pronounce the final t because of -ante:
      • fatigant /fatiɡɑ̃/ (no final t sound)
      • fatigante / fatigantes /fatiɡɑ̃t/ (you hear the t)

  • journée → /ʒuʁne/

    • Roughly: “zhoor-nay”
    • j → /ʒ/ as in “measure”
    • Final -ée gives the sound -é /e/.

Spoken together in a natural way, you might hear something like:
[ʒə tʁuv se blaɡ‿œ̃ pø fatiɡɑ̃t kɑ̃ la ʒuʁne a deʒa ete lɔ̃ɡ].