Learn Hardcore French: Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle, mais ce soir elle dit : « Je suis vraiment en colère. » - Marie often keeps her anger to herself, but tonight she says, “I am really angry.”

In French, possessive adjectives (mon, ma, mes, ton, ta, tes, son, sa, ses) agree with the gender and number of the noun possessed, not with the owner.

colère is a feminine noun (la colère).
Singular + feminine → we must use sa.

So:

sa colère = her/his anger
(not son colère, which would be grammatically wrong)

Even if the owner were a man, it would still be sa colère, because colère is feminine.

What does garder sa colère pour elle literally mean, and is it an idiom?

Literally, garder sa colère pour elle means “to keep her anger for herself.”

But idiomatically, it means:

to keep her anger to herself / not show or express her anger.

This comes from the common structure:

garder quelque chose pour soi = to keep something to oneself
- garder un secret pour soi = keep a secret to oneself
- garder ses pensées pour soi = keep one’s thoughts to oneself

In the sentence, the idea is exactly that: Marie does not express her anger; she hides it inside.

Could we say pour soi instead of pour elle here?

No, not naturally in this sentence.

French uses soi mainly with:

impersonal subjects: on, chacun, personne, tout le monde
or in general/undefined statements.

For a specific person like Marie, you normally use the stressed pronoun that matches the person:

pour moi (for me)
pour toi (for you)
pour lui / pour elle (for him / her)
pour nous, pour vous, pour eux / elles

So here:

Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle. ✅
Marie garde souvent sa colère pour soi. ❌ (sounds wrong)

If you wanted to be more explicit, you could say:

Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle-même.
(literally: for herself – a bit more emphatic)

Why is souvent placed after garde and before sa colère?

In simple tenses (like the present), most adverbs of frequency (souvent, toujours, rarement, etc.) are placed after the conjugated verb:

Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle.
Il arrive toujours en retard.
Nous mangeons rarement au restaurant.

You generally cannot put souvent between the subject and the verb:

❌ Marie souvent garde sa colère… (incorrect in standard French)

Other possible positions (with a change in emphasis) are:

Souvent, Marie garde sa colère pour elle.
(Often, Marie keeps her anger to herself – focus on “often”)

But the most neutral and common position in this sentence is:

garde souvent (verb + adverb).

Why is elle repeated: … pour elle, mais ce soir elle dit …? Can we omit the second elle?

In French, every new finite verb normally needs its subject stated (unless it’s clearly shared in a very tight structure).

Here, we have two clauses:

Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle,
mais ce soir elle dit : …

Each clause has its own verb (garde, dit), so each one needs a subject.

… mais ce soir dit : … ❌ sounds wrong; French doesn’t normally drop subject pronouns the way Spanish or Italian can.

You could rewrite to avoid the repetition, but you’d also change the structure, for example:

Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle, mais pas ce soir : “Je suis vraiment en colère.”
(different sentence, slightly different rhythm)

As written, repeating elle is correct and standard.

Why is the present tense used in elle garde and elle dit instead of a past tense?

The two presents have different time values:

Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle
→ habitual present: this describes her usual, general behavior.
mais ce soir elle dit : “Je suis vraiment en colère.”
→ present used for what is happening now / tonight.

In English you might say:

“Marie usually keeps her anger to herself, but tonight she says, ‘I’m really angry.’”

Using the present in both parts highlights the contrast between her usual habit and what is happening right now. A past tense like elle a dit (she said) would move the event into a narrative past and lose that immediate contrast with souvent.

What exactly does ce soir mean here? How is it different from ce soir-là?

ce soir = this evening / tonight (from the speaker’s point of view: the current or upcoming evening).
It’s deictic: it depends on “now”.

In contrast:

ce soir-là = that evening (a specific evening in the past or in a story, already identified in the context).

In your sentence:

mais ce soir elle dit…
→ implies tonight (as opposed to other nights) she does something different.

If this were part of a past narrative, you might find:

Mais ce soir-là, elle a dit : “Je suis vraiment en colère.”
→ But that evening, she said, “I’m really angry.”

What role does mais play here? Could we use pourtant or cependant instead?

mais is a coordinating conjunction meaning but, used to connect two clauses and mark contrast:

Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle, mais ce soir elle dit…

Here, it contrasts:

her usual behavior (keeps anger to herself)
with what happens tonight (she expresses it).

You could also use:

pourtant or cependant, which are more like adverbs (“however”, “yet”, “nevertheless”).

For example:

Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle. Pourtant, ce soir, elle dit…
Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle ; cependant, ce soir, elle dit…

Differences:

mais is more neutral, very common in speech.
pourtant / cependant sound a bit more literary or formal and often start a new sentence or clause with punctuation before them.

In the original sentence, mais is the most natural and conversational choice.

What does en mean in Je suis vraiment en colère? Why not say Je suis colère?

en colère is a fixed expression meaning angry.

Literally: “in anger”, but in practice you just translate it as angry.

The en here does not have a clear, independent meaning; it’s part of the idiom:

être en colère = to be angry
se mettre en colère = to get angry
entrer dans une colère noire = to fly into a rage

You cannot normally say:

❌ Je suis colère. (incorrect in standard French)

You must use the whole expression:

✅ Je suis en colère. = I’m angry.

Is there a difference between Je suis vraiment en colère and Je suis très fâché(e)?

Both mean “I’m really angry”, but with some nuances:

Je suis vraiment en colère.
- uses the set phrase en colère
- vraiment = really / truly
- very common and neutral.
Je suis très fâché / Je suis très fâchée.
- fâché(e) is an adjective meaning angry / upset / annoyed.
- très = very.
- Slightly more flexible in intensity: fâché can be mild (upset) or quite strong (angry) depending on context and tone.

Grammar point:

en colère does not change for gender:
- Je suis en colère. (same for a man or a woman)
fâché does change:
- Je suis fâché. (speaker is male)
- Je suis fâchée. (speaker is female)

Why is there a colon before the spoken words, and are the French quotation marks « » necessary?

In French, the standard way to introduce direct speech in formal writing is:

[clause] : « [spoken words] »

So:

… mais ce soir elle dit : « Je suis vraiment en colère. »

Rules reflected here:

A colon (:) often introduces direct speech after a verb like dire, répondre, ajouter, demander, etc.
French traditionally uses guillemets (« ») as quotation marks.
There is usually a (non‑breaking) space before the colon and inside the guillemets in careful typography, though this often disappears in plain typing.

Are guillemets strictly necessary? In real life:

In formal written French (books, newspapers, essays), « » or at least some quotation marks are normally used.
In more informal contexts (texts, emails), people often use English-style quotes:
- elle dit : "Je suis vraiment en colère."

But some form of quotation mark is needed to clearly show what Marie is saying.

Can we move ce soir or souvent to other positions, and does it change the meaning?

You have some flexibility, but the default positions are:

Marie garde souvent sa colère pour elle, mais ce soir elle dit…

Possible variations:

Moving souvent:
- Souvent, Marie garde sa colère pour elle…
  → Emphasizes “Often / As a rule”.
- Marie, souvent, garde sa colère pour elle…
  → Also possible, but a bit more marked/stylistic.
Moving ce soir:
- Mais ce soir, elle dit : …
  → Very natural; slight emphasis on “this evening”.
- Elle dit ce soir : “Je suis vraiment en colère.”
  → Grammatically possible, but here it sounds more like “she says, this evening, ‘I’m really angry’,” less good stylistically than the original version.

What you cannot do in neutral French:

❌ Marie souvent garde sa colère… (adverb between subject and verb)
❌ Ce soir dit elle : … (missing subject pronoun before the verb, and bad inversion)

So yes, you can move them for emphasis, but the original order is the most neutral and idiomatic.