Breakdown of Ce dont elle parle le plus, c'est de l'amour et de la liberté.
Questions & Answers about Ce dont elle parle le plus, c'est de l'amour et de la liberté.
Ce dont literally combines ce (meaning what / the thing that) and dont (a relative pronoun replacing de + something).
In this sentence:
- parler de quelque chose = to talk about something
- dont replaces de + ce
- ce dont elle parle ≈ what she talks about / the thing she talks about
So Ce dont elle parle le plus means What she talks about the most (i.e. the subject she talks about most often).
You choose the relative pronoun based on what comes after it:
Use dont when the verb or expression needs de:
- parler de (to talk about)
- avoir besoin de (to need)
- se souvenir de (to remember)
→ ce dont elle parle, ce dont j’ai besoin, etc.
Use que when it’s a direct object (no preposition):
- ce que j’aime = what I like
Use qui when it’s the subject of the verb:
- ce qui m’intéresse = what interests me
Here the verb is parler de (to speak about), so we need de.
That’s why we use dont, not que or qui.
French and English simply use different prepositions with this verb:
- French: parler de quelque chose
- English: to talk about something
When you turn this into a relative construction:
- la chose dont elle parle = the thing (of which / that) she talks (about)
- ce dont elle parle = what she talks about
So dont is there because parler almost always takes de when you specify the topic.
This is a classic cleft sentence in French. Structure:
- Ce dont elle parle le plus = What she talks about the most (topic, put first for emphasis)
- c’est de l’amour et de la liberté = is love and freedom (what that thing actually is)
So overall:
Ce dont elle parle le plus, c’est de l’amour et de la liberté.
≈ What she talks about the most is love and freedom.
French uses c’est very often to link ce + relative clause to a noun phrase.
It’s much more natural than saying Ce dont elle parle le plus est…, which sounds more formal or bookish.
The de l’ and de la here are partitive / indefinite:
- de l’amour ≈ (some) love / love as a general kind of thing
- de la liberté ≈ (some) freedom / freedom as a general idea
With c’est, French usually uses de + article when you present something as:
- a type or category:
- C’est de la musique. = It’s (some) music.
- an abstract notion in a non-specific way:
- C’est de l’amour. = It’s (some) love (not the one unique love).
If you said:
- C’est l’amour et la liberté.
you’d make them sound more specific, almost like the Love and the Freedom (more definite, almost personified), which is possible but a bit different in nuance. The original is more like:
What she mostly talks about is love and freedom (as general themes).
This is about article choice and elision:
Article / gender
- amour is masculine: normally l’amour (definite), de l’amour (partitive)
- You might expect du amour (de + le), but French avoids that form.
Elision rule
- With a singular noun starting with a vowel or silent h, de + le / de + la becomes de l’:
- de + le amour → de l’amour
- de + la eau → de l’eau
- With a singular noun starting with a vowel or silent h, de + le / de + la becomes de l’:
d’amour is just de + amour without an article. That’s used in fixed expressions:
- des chansons d’amour = love songs
- une histoire d’amour = a love story
In this sentence we need a partitive with c’est: c’est de l’amour, not c’est d’amour.
Here de is required before each noun because both are objects of parler de, and both are part of the c’est de… structure:
- de l’amour
- et de la liberté
Saying de l’amour et la liberté is ungrammatical in this context because:
- l’amour would be governed by de (correct),
- but la liberté would suddenly not have de, even though it plays the same role.
Think of it like: She talks about [love] and [freedom] → she talks about both, so both get de:
de l’amour et de la liberté.
Yes, you can, and it’s perfectly correct:
- Elle parle le plus de l’amour et de la liberté.
= She talks the most about love and freedom.
The difference is in emphasis and style:
- Elle parle le plus de… is straightforward, neutral.
- Ce dont elle parle le plus, c’est… highlights what she mainly talks about as a distinct “topic”, making it more emphatic and a bit more elegant or literary.
So both are fine; they just sound slightly different.
Yes, that’s possible, and it changes the nuance a bit:
c’est de l’amour / de la liberté → partitive / non‑specific:
- It’s (some) love and (some) freedom, as themes or types of things.
c’est l’amour et la liberté → definite, more “big concepts”:
- It’s Love and Freedom (as large, almost capital‑letter ideas).
In everyday speech, c’est l’amour et la liberté would sound a bit more solemn or “big theme” than c’est de l’amour et de la liberté, which is slightly more neutral / descriptive. Both are grammatically correct.
Le plus is used here as an adverb of quantity/frequency modifying the verb parler:
- parler beaucoup = to talk a lot
- parler trop = to talk too much
- parler le plus = to talk the most
Adverbs that modify verbs usually come after the verb in French:
- Elle parle beaucoup.
- Elle parle trop.
- Elle parle le plus de ce sujet.
So Ce dont elle parle le plus just means what she talks about the most (in terms of frequency/amount), and the placement is standard.
You could say it, but it sounds:
- more formal, written, or stylistically heavy
- less natural in everyday speech
In modern French, when ce + relative is followed by a noun phrase, c’est is strongly preferred:
- Ce que j’aime le plus, c’est le chocolat.
- Ce qui m’intéresse, c’est la musique.
- Ce dont elle parle le plus, c’est de l’amour et de la liberté.
So est isn’t “wrong” grammatically, but c’est is the idiomatic, native-like choice here.
It’s neutral to slightly elevated, but not overly formal:
- The vocabulary (amour, liberté) is everyday.
- The cleft structure (Ce dont elle parle le plus, c’est…) is common in both spoken and written French when you want emphasis.
You might hear this kind of sentence in:
- conversation, especially when explaining or commenting on someone’s interests
- narration, essays, or journalism
It doesn’t sound slangy or very casual, but also not stiff or archaic.