Breakdown of À l’est, on voit la mer; à l’ouest, on voit les montagnes.
Questions & Answers about À l’est, on voit la mer; à l’ouest, on voit les montagnes.
In this sentence, à l’est means “to the east / toward the east / on the eastern side” and describes a direction or side of the viewpoint.
à
- a point on the compass = where something is located relative to you:
- À l’est, on voit la mer. – To the east, we see the sea.
- À l’ouest, il y a une forêt. – To the west, there is a forest.
dans l’est is more like “in the eastern part (of a region/country)”:
- Dans l’est de la France, il fait froid. – In the east of France, it is cold.
So here the sentence is talking about what you see in each direction from where you are standing, not about “the eastern region” of a place, so à l’est / à l’ouest is the natural choice.
In French, on is very common and often more natural than nous in everyday speech.
- on voit literally means “one sees”, but in modern French it usually corresponds to:
- we see
- you can see
- people see / you see in general
So À l’est, on voit la mer can be understood as:
- To the east, you can see the sea, or
- To the east, we see the sea.
You could say:
- À l’est, nous voyons la mer.
- À l’est, on peut voir la mer.
Both are grammatically correct.
However:
- on voit is shorter and very natural in spoken and neutral written French.
- nous voyons sounds a bit more formal or “written”.
- on peut voir emphasizes possibility (“it is possible to see”), while on voit is more like a straightforward description of what actually happens/what one experiences.
This is mostly about the way French conceptualizes these nouns:
la mer is usually seen as a single continuous mass of water, so it’s normally singular with a definite article:
- la mer – the sea
- J’aime la mer. – I like the sea.
la montagne / les montagnes:
- la montagne can mean “the mountains” as a general environment (the mountains as a region, like “the seaside” vs “the mountains”).
- J’adore la montagne. – I love the mountains (mountain country).
- les montagnes refers more concretely to the individual mountains you can see.
- la montagne can mean “the mountains” as a general environment (the mountains as a region, like “the seaside” vs “the mountains”).
In on voit les montagnes, the idea is that you see several mountain peaks or a mountain range made of individual mountains, so plural is natural: les montagnes.
In French, when compass points are used as nouns (not adjectives), they normally take a definite article:
- l’est – the east
- l’ouest – the west
- le nord – the north
- le sud – the south
So you get structures like:
- à l’est – to the east
- dans l’ouest – in the west
- du nord au sud – from (the) north to (the) south
English often drops “the” in similar expressions (“in east London” vs “in the east of London”), but French keeps the article in these fixed expressions. Because est and ouest start with a vowel, le / la become l’ by elision: à le est → à l’est.
The semicolon in French works much like in English:
- It links two closely related clauses that could each be a separate sentence, but the writer wants to show a clear connection or symmetry between them.
Here, the structure is nicely balanced:
- À l’est, on voit la mer; à l’ouest, on voit les montagnes.
You could replace the semicolon with:
- a comma:
- À l’est, on voit la mer, à l’ouest, on voit les montagnes.
This is understood, but can feel a bit long and less clear in writing.
- À l’est, on voit la mer, à l’ouest, on voit les montagnes.
- a period:
- À l’est, on voit la mer. À l’ouest, on voit les montagnes.
Perfectly correct; it just breaks the symmetry into two separate sentences.
- À l’est, on voit la mer. À l’ouest, on voit les montagnes.
So the semicolon is a stylistic choice that highlights the contrast and parallel between l’est and l’ouest.
This is due to elision, a very common rule in French spelling and pronunciation.
- le or la becomes l’ before a word that starts with a vowel sound:
- le ami → l’ami
- la école → l’école
- le ouest → l’ouest
- le est → l’est
You never write le est or le ouest. The vowel of le/la disappears and is replaced by an apostrophe. This makes pronunciation smoother:
- l’est is pronounced roughly [lest] (like “lest” in English).
- l’ouest is roughly [lwɛst] (“lwest”).
Yes, that is perfectly grammatical:
- On voit la mer à l’est; on voit les montagnes à l’ouest.
French allows both:
- À l’est, on voit la mer. (direction first, then statement)
- On voit la mer à l’est. (statement first, then detail of place)
Putting À l’est and À l’ouest at the beginning:
- emphasizes the contrast between east and west,
- gives the sentence a more literary or descriptive rhythm.
The version with On voit… à l’est is more neutral and closer to everyday speech. Both are correct; the original just has a nice balanced, contrastive style.
voit is the 3rd person singular, present tense of the verb voir (to see).
Present tense conjugation of voir:
- je vois – I see
- tu vois – you see (singular, informal)
- il / elle / on voit – he / she / one / we see
- nous voyons – we see
- vous voyez – you see (plural or formal)
- ils / elles voient – they see
So on voit = “one sees / we see / you can see” in the present. The sentence is simply describing what is generally visible when you look east or west.
Yes, that’s possible in French and would still be understood:
- À l’est, on voit la mer; à l’ouest, les montagnes.
This is an example of ellipsis: repeating on voit is unnecessary because the structure is clear and the reader mentally fills it in.
However:
- Repeating on voit (…; à l’ouest, on voit les montagnes) makes the sentence more explicit and a bit easier for learners.
- Omitting it sounds slightly more literary or compact, but is quite natural in written French.
French capitalization rules are stricter than English ones:
Compass points are not capitalized when they simply refer to directions:
- à l’est – to the east
- au nord – to the north
- vers l’ouest – towards the west
They can be capitalized when they are part of a proper name or a very specific region:
- L’Extrême-Orient – the Far East
- L’Europe de l’Est – Eastern Europe (here Est is sometimes capitalized)
- L’Ouest américain – the American West
In À l’est, on voit la mer; à l’ouest, on voit les montagnes, we’re just talking about directions from where you stand, so est and ouest stay lowercase.
Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct:
- À l’est, on peut voir la mer; à l’ouest, on peut voir les montagnes.
Difference in nuance:
- on voit = one sees / you (normally) see / people see. It presents the fact more directly, as something you actually observe.
- on peut voir = one can see / it is possible to see. It emphasizes possibility or ability, slightly less direct.
In many contexts they are interchangeable, but:
- For a neutral description of what is visible, on voit sounds a bit lighter and more natural.
- If you wanted to stress that “if you look, you can see it (it’s not blocked)”, on peut voir might be chosen.
Approximate guide (in English-like sounds):
- À l’est → ah lest
- on → nasal sound, similar to ohn with air through the nose
- voit → vwah
la mer → la mehr (like “mare” but more open e)
- à l’ouest → ah lwest (the ou is like w
- eh in this word)
- les → lay
- montagnes → roughly mon-tahn-yuh:
- mon – nasal mon (like “mon” but with nasal vowel)
- ta – tah
- gnes – soft gn like in lasagna, + a weak schwa sound (nyuh)
There is no liaison between est and on here; you don’t link the t:
- [a lest | ɔ̃ vwa la mɛʁ; a lwɛst | ɔ̃ vwa le mɔ̃taɲ] (IPA)
The rhythm naturally highlights the parallel:
- À l’est / on voit la mer; / à l’ouest / on voit les montagnes.