Breakdown of Paul écrit parfois sur un forum d’étudiants et met son profil sur un réseau social.
Questions & Answers about Paul écrit parfois sur un forum d’étudiants et met son profil sur un réseau social.
Both écrit (from écrire) and met (from mettre) are in the present indicative, 3rd person singular.
In French, the present tense usually covers both:
- English simple present: “Paul writes … and puts …”
- English present continuous: “Paul is writing … and is putting …”
So Paul écrit can mean either “Paul writes” or “Paul is writing,” depending on context. There is no separate “is writing” form in French; you just use the present.
In French, many adverbs of frequency (like souvent, toujours, parfois, rarement) are most commonly placed after the conjugated verb:
- Paul écrit parfois…
- Je mange souvent au restaurant.
You can put parfois at the beginning of the sentence for emphasis:
- Parfois, Paul écrit sur un forum d’étudiants.
but Paul parfois écrit… is unusual and sounds wrong in standard French. So the neutral, natural position for parfois here is after écrit.
Parfois and quelquefois both mean roughly “sometimes” and are often interchangeable.
- Paul écrit parfois sur un forum.
- Paul écrit quelquefois sur un forum.
Differences:
- parfois is more common in modern spoken and written French.
- quelquefois can sound a bit more formal or old‑fashioned in some contexts, but it’s still correct.
Both suggest an occasional action, less frequent than souvent (“often”) but more than rarement (“rarely”).
The choice of preposition depends on how French “imagines” the activity:
- sur un forum: “on a forum” – thinking of it as a platform or surface (like a website, page, platform).
- dans un forum: would suggest being inside a (physical) forum space, which doesn’t match normal usage for an online forum.
For online contexts (websites, forums, social networks), French normally uses sur:
- sur un forum
- sur un site
- sur Facebook / sur Instagram
- sur un réseau social
Forum d’étudiants literally means “students’ forum,” but the de here expresses a type or characteristic, not strict ownership.
So:
- un forum d’étudiants = a forum for / used by / about students.
You could also say un forum pour les étudiants (“a forum for students”), which is very close in meaning.
The structure [noun] de [noun] is often used to describe what something is about or who it involves, e.g.:
- un club d’étudiants – a student club
- un journal d’étudiants – a student newspaper
The apostrophe is due to elision.
- The basic form is de
- étudiants.
- In French, when de comes before a word starting with a vowel sound (like étudiants), it usually becomes d’:
- de
- étudiants → d’étudiants
- de
This makes pronunciation smoother and is a general rule with many words:
- de amis → d’amis
- de oranges → d’oranges
Met is from mettre, a very common verb whose basic meaning is “to put” or “to place.”
In the context of the internet:
- mettre son profil sur un réseau social = to put / place your profile on a social network (i.e. to create or upload your profile there).
French often uses mettre for actions like:
- mettre une photo sur Instagram – to put/post a photo on Instagram
- mettre un commentaire – to post a comment
You could also say:
- créer son profil
- mettre son profil en ligne
but mettre son profil sur un réseau social is natural and idiomatic.
Again, it’s the French preference for sur with online platforms.
For internet services, the usual preposition is sur:
- sur un réseau social – on a social network
- sur un site web – on a website
- sur YouTube – on YouTube
So “in a social network” in English corresponds to sur un réseau social in French.
Un réseau social literally means “a social network” and in everyday modern French usually refers to a social networking site/app, like:
- Twitter/X
Les réseaux sociaux (plural) is the common expression for “social media” in general.
There is also les médias sociaux, but in everyday speech les réseaux sociaux is more frequent and sounds more natural.
In French, most adjectives go after the noun:
- un réseau social – a social network
- un livre intéressant – an interesting book
- un forum étudiant – a student forum
Some common, short adjectives go before the noun (like beau, petit, grand, bon, mauvais), but social is not in that group, so it follows the noun:
- noun: réseau
- adjective: social → réseau social
In French, when two verbs share the same subject, you normally mention the subject once and then connect the verbs with et:
- Paul écrit… et met son profil…
The subject Paul is understood for both écrit and met.
You can repeat the subject:
- Paul écrit parfois sur un forum d’étudiants et il met son profil sur un réseau social.
This is grammatically correct, but a bit heavier. The version without il is more concise and very natural in written French.
You wrap ne … pas around each verb you want to negate.
For example, if you want to say “Paul doesn’t sometimes write on a student forum and doesn’t put his profile on a social network” (very unusual meaning, but grammatically):
- Paul n’écrit pas parfois sur un forum d’étudiants et ne met pas son profil sur un réseau social.
More realistic negatives would target each idea separately, e.g.:
- “Paul doesn’t write on a student forum”:
- Paul n’écrit pas sur un forum d’étudiants.
- “Paul doesn’t put his profile on a social network”:
- Paul ne met pas son profil sur un réseau social.
Both écrire and mettre are irregular. Here are their present‑tense forms:
Écrire (to write):
- j’écris
- tu écris
- il / elle / on écrit
- nous écrivons
- vous écrivez
- ils / elles écrivent
Mettre (to put):
- je mets
- tu mets
- il / elle / on met
- nous mettons
- vous mettez
- ils / elles mettent
So in the sentence:
- Paul écrit → 3rd person singular of écrire
- (Paul) met → 3rd person singular of mettre