Breakdown of L'infirmière parle avec le médecin dans le couloir.
Questions & Answers about L'infirmière parle avec le médecin dans le couloir.
In French, le and la become l' in front of a singular noun that starts with a vowel or a silent h.
This is called elision and it makes pronunciation smoother.
- la infirmière → sounds awkward, so it becomes l'infirmière
- Similarly: l'école, l'homme, l'hôtel
The gender is still feminine; only the written form changes from la to l'.
The word infirmière (nurse) is feminine here because it refers to a female nurse and because of its form:
- Masculine: un infirmier
- Feminine: une infirmière
Often, a masculine job title ends in -ier and the feminine form adds -ère (spelled -ière):
cuisinier / cuisinière, caissier / caissière, infirmier / infirmière.
The subject is l'infirmière, which is she (3rd person singular).
The present tense of parler (to speak) is:
- je parle
- tu parles
- il / elle / on parle
- nous parlons
- vous parlez
- ils / elles parlent
So with elle (the nurse), you use parle.
The final -e is not pronounced, so je parle and il/elle parle sound the same.
Both are possible, but they are slightly different:
- parler à quelqu’un = to speak to someone (direction of speech)
- Elle parle au médecin. = She is speaking to the doctor.
- parler avec quelqu’un = to speak with someone (interaction, conversation)
- Elle parle avec le médecin. = She is having a conversation with the doctor.
Here, avec suggests more of a two-way conversation rather than just addressing someone.
Grammatically, médecin is masculine in French:
- un médecin, le médecin, ce médecin
In everyday French, many people still use the masculine form le médecin even when the doctor is female.
In some contexts, you might see or hear a feminine form like une femme médecin or une médecin, but le médecin is still very common and is grammatically correct regardless of the doctor’s actual gender.
Dans means in / inside, so dans le couloir = in the corridor / hallway.
- dans le couloir: physically inside the corridor
- au couloir: would be à + le couloir, but this is not idiomatic French here; people simply do not say it
- en couloir: not used; en is used with some nouns (e.g. en classe, en ville, en France), but couloir is not one of them
So the natural expression is dans le couloir.
French uses definite and indefinite articles differently from English. You choose between them depending on what you mean:
- L'infirmière parle avec le médecin.
Suggests specific people that the speaker and listener can identify (the nurse and the doctor in that situation). - Une infirmière parle avec un médecin.
Means a nurse is talking with a doctor (not specific; just some nurse and some doctor).
So the sentence with l' and le is talking about particular people, not just any nurse or any doctor.
Yes, that is perfectly correct.
French allows you to move the location phrase to the beginning for emphasis or style:
- L'infirmière parle avec le médecin dans le couloir. (neutral order)
- Dans le couloir, l'infirmière parle avec le médecin. (emphasis on the location)
Both mean the same thing; the second just highlights in the corridor more strongly.
A natural pronunciation (in IPA) is roughly:
[lɛ̃.fiʁ.mjɛʁ paʁl a.vɛk lə me.de.sɛ̃ dɑ̃ lə ku.lwaʁ]
Key points:
- L'infirmière: the n in in is nasal; you do not pronounce a separate n.
- parle: final -e is silent; it sounds like parl.
- parle avec: no obligatory liaison; you normally say parl-avèk, but the final -e of parle is not heard.
- médecin: the final -in is nasal; final -n is not pronounced.
- couloir: the final -r is pronounced in standard French.
There are no required liaisons in this sentence.
General difference:
- parler à quelqu’un = to speak / talk to someone
Focus on the direction: you are addressing that person. - parler avec quelqu’un = to speak / talk with someone
Focus on the idea of a conversation between two people.
In practice, they often overlap, but avec more clearly suggests an exchange, like in parler avec le médecin (discussing something together).