La nuit, elle tousse encore beaucoup et Paul l’entend tousser dans le couloir.

At night, she still coughs a lot and Paul hears her coughing in the hallway.

Breakdown of La nuit, elle tousse encore beaucoup et Paul l’entend tousser dans le couloir.

• Paul: Paul
• elle: she
• et: and
• dans: in
• beaucoup: a lot
• l': her
• encore: still
• entendre: to hear
• la nuit: the night
• le couloir: the hallway
• tousser: to cough

Questions & Answers about La nuit, elle tousse encore beaucoup et Paul l’entend tousser dans le couloir.

In La nuit, elle tousse encore beaucoup, does la nuit mean “the night” or “at night”?

Here la nuit is a time expression and is best translated as “at night” in English.

Literally it’s “the night”, but when you put la nuit (or le matin, l’après‑midi, le soir) at the beginning like this, French is usually talking about a general time of day:

• La nuit, elle tousse. → She coughs at night (in general).
• Le matin, je bois du café. → In the morning, I drink coffee.

If you wanted to talk about a specific night, you’d say something like:

• La nuit dernière, elle a beaucoup toussé. → Last night, she coughed a lot.

Why is there a comma after La nuit?

The comma separates a fronted time expression from the main clause.

French often puts time or place expressions at the start, followed by a comma:

• Ce matin, il a plu.
• En France, on parle français.

You could also say:

• Elle tousse encore beaucoup la nuit.

That’s equally correct; the nuance is just word order / emphasis, not grammar.

What’s the difference between tousse and tousser in this sentence, and why are both used?

They’re the same verb (tousser = to cough), but in two different forms:

• tousse = present tense, 3rd person singular
  → elle tousse = she coughs / she is coughing
• tousser = infinitive
  → tousser = to cough / coughing

So the sentence has two separate ideas:

1. Elle tousse encore beaucoup.
   → She still coughs a lot.

2. Paul l’entend tousser.
   → Paul hears her coughing.
   (literally: Paul hears her cough / to cough)

French uses entendre + infinitive (hear + verb) to express “hear someone do/doing something”:

• J’entends les enfants jouer. → I hear the children playing.
• On l’a entendu chanter. → We heard him/her sing / singing.

How do you pronounce tousse and tousser?

Approximate pronunciation:

• tousse → /tus/ (similar to toos in English)
  • one syllable
  • ou sounds like “oo” in food
  • final e is silent
• tousser → /tuse/ (roughly too-say)
  • two syllables: tou‑sser
  • ou again like “oo”
  • final -er is pronounced /e/ like the é in café

So:

• tousse → toos
• tousser → too-say

What exactly does encore mean here? Is it “still” or “again”?

In this context, encore means “still”:

• Elle tousse encore beaucoup. → She still coughs a lot.

Common meanings of encore:

1. still (a situation continues):

   • Il est encore malade. → He is still sick.

2. again (repetition):

   • Fais-le encore ! → Do it again!

Whether it’s “still” or “again” depends on context.
Here, because it describes an ongoing problem at night, “still” fits best.

Why is it encore beaucoup and not beaucoup encore?

Both encore and beaucoup are adverbs, but they don’t have the same role:

• encore → time/aspect: still / again
• beaucoup → quantity/intensity: a lot

The natural order in French is:

[encore] + [adverb of quantity / intensity]

So:

• Elle tousse encore beaucoup. ✅ (She still coughs a lot.)

Beaucoup encore would sound wrong or, at best, very unusual here.
You might see encore beaucoup de… before a noun:

• Il y a encore beaucoup de travail. → There is still a lot of work.

In Paul l’entend tousser, what does l’ stand for?

L’ is a direct object pronoun replacing elle (her):

• Full idea: Paul entend elle tousser. ❌ (ungrammatical)
• Correct: Paul l’entend tousser. ✅ → Paul hears her coughing.

Details:

• The pronoun la (her) becomes l’ before a vowel or mute h:
  • la entend → l’entend
• It comes before the conjugated verb in standard French word order.

Other examples:

• Je l’entends parler. → I hear her/him talking.
• Je l’ai entendue tousser. → I heard her cough(ing).
  (Here, l’ refers to a female person, so the past participle can agree: entendue.)

Why don’t we say Paul entend elle tousser or Paul la entend tousser?

Because in French:

1. Object pronouns go before the conjugated verb.
2. La becomes l’ in front of a vowel sound.

So:

• Paul entend elle tousser. ❌
  You can’t leave elle (a stressed pronoun) there as a direct object like this.

• Paul la entend tousser. ❌
  The pronoun is in the right place, but la must contract to l’ before a vowel:

  • la entend → l’entend

Correct:

• Paul l’entend tousser. ✅ → Paul hears her coughing.

How does the structure entendre + infinitive work, compared to English?

French frequently uses:

entendre + direct object pronoun / noun + infinitive

Meaning: to hear someone do/doing something.

Pattern in the sentence:

• Paul l’entend tousser
  → subject (Paul) + pronoun (l’) + entend
  • infinitive (tousser)

Compare with English patterns:

• Paul hears her cough.
• Paul hears her coughing.

More examples in French:

• J’entends Marie chanter. → I hear Marie sing / singing.
• On entend les enfants rire. → We hear the children laughing.
• Ils l’ont entendu parler de toi. → They heard him/her talk about you.

French doesn’t need a “that” clause here (no “entendre que…”); it prefers entendre + infinitive with the person as object.

What does dans le couloir mean exactly? Is it like “in the hallway”?

Yes. Dans le couloir = in the corridor / in the hallway.

• dans = in
• le = the (masculine singular article)
• couloir = corridor / hallway

So:

• … et Paul l’entend tousser dans le couloir.
  → “…and Paul hears her coughing in the hallway.”
  (i.e. he hears this sound coming from the corridor outside his room, for example.)

Could you also say Paul l’entend qui tousse dans le couloir? Is that different?

Yes, you can say:

• Paul l’entend qui tousse dans le couloir.

This is also correct, and it focuses more on her as a person who is coughing.

Nuance:

• Paul l’entend tousser.
  → Neutral, simple “He hears her coughing.”

• Paul l’entend qui tousse.
  → Slightly more “descriptive”:
  He hears her, who is coughing / he hears her as she coughs.

In everyday speech, Paul l’entend tousser is more straightforward and common for this meaning.