Nous marchons dans le sable chaud près de l’océan.

We walk in the warm sand near the ocean.

Breakdown of Nous marchons dans le sable chaud près de l’océan.

• nous: we
• dans: in
• près de: near
• chaud: warm
• marcher: to walk
• le sable: the sand
• l'océan: the ocean

Questions & Answers about Nous marchons dans le sable chaud près de l’océan.

Why is it nous marchons and not something like nous marchent?

In French, verbs change their ending depending on the subject (who is doing the action).

The verb here is marcher (to walk). In the present tense:

• je marche (I walk)
• tu marches (you walk, singular informal)
• il/elle/on marche (he/she/one walks)
• nous marchons (we walk)
• vous marchez (you walk, plural or formal)
• ils/elles marchent (they walk)

So with nous, the correct ending is -ons, giving nous marchons.
Marchent is only used with ils/elles, not with nous.

Does nous marchons mean “we walk” or “we are walking”?

Nous marchons can mean both “we walk” and “we are walking”.

French only has one simple present tense (le présent) for both the English simple present and the present continuous.

Context usually makes it clear:

• Nous marchons dans le sable chaud près de l’océan.
  → “We are walking in the warm sand near the ocean” (a specific moment)
• Nous marchons tous les matins.
  → “We walk every morning” (habit)

If you really want to emphasize “are walking (right now)”, you can say:

• Nous sommes en train de marcher…
  But in everyday French, nous marchons is normally enough.

Why is it dans le sable (“in the sand”) and not sur le sable (“on the sand”)?

Both are possible, but they don’t feel exactly the same:

• dans le sable = literally “in the sand”
  Suggests your feet are in contact with and partly inside the sand (like walking barefoot and sinking a bit).
• sur le sable = literally “on the sand”
  A bit more neutral: simply “on top of the sand”.

For walking on a beach, dans le sable is very natural in French, because you’re typically walking in (and through) the sand, not on a hard surface.

Why do we say le sable (“the sand”) in French when in English we just say “sand” without “the”?

French uses definite articles (le, la, les) much more often than English.

• le sable = “the sand” or sometimes just “sand” depending on context.
• English often drops the with uncountable nouns when speaking in general:
  
  • “I like sand.”
  • “There is sand on the beach.”

In French, you normally cannot drop the article in that kind of sentence, so you say:

• J’aime le sable.
• Nous marchons dans le sable chaud.

So le sable is simply the normal French way; the English translation can skip the for naturalness.

Why is chaud placed after sable instead of before it, like in English (“warm sand”)?

In French, most adjectives usually come after the noun:

• le sable chaud = the warm sand
• une maison blanche = a white house
• un film intéressant = an interesting film

A smaller group of common adjectives go before the noun (often described by the BANGS rule: Beauty, Age, Number, Goodness, Size), for example:

• une belle maison (a beautiful house)
• un vieux film (an old movie)
• un bon livre (a good book)
• un petit chien (a small dog)

Chaud (warm/hot) normally goes after the noun, so we say le sable chaud, not le chaud sable.

Does chaud agree with sable? How would it change in other cases?

Yes, chaud has to agree with the noun sable in gender and number.

• sable is masculine singular → le sable chaud (warm sand)

If the noun were:

• Feminine singular: la plage chaude (the warm beach)
• Masculine plural: les sables chauds (the warm sands)
• Feminine plural: les plages chaudes (the warm beaches)

So:

• Masculine singular: chaud
• Feminine singular: chaude
• Masculine plural: chauds
• Feminine plural: chaudes

In the original sentence, le sable is masculine singular, so the adjective stays as chaud.

What exactly does près de l’océan mean, and why do we need de?

Près de is a fixed expression that means “near / close to”.

• près alone just means “near” in a more general sense.
• To say “near something”, you need près de + noun.

Examples:

• près de la maison = near the house
• près des arbres = near the trees
• près de toi = near you

In our sentence:

• près de + l’océan
  → because océan starts with a vowel, de le océan contracts to de l’océan.

So près de l’océan = “near the ocean”.

Why is it l’océan and not le océan?

French uses elision (dropping a vowel and replacing it with an apostrophe) to make pronunciation smoother.

• le
  • a noun starting with a vowel or mute h becomes l’:
    • le océan → l’océan
    • le arbre → l’arbre
    • le homme → l’homme

The same happens with la:

• la école → l’école

So l’océan is just the correct contracted form of le océan.

What is the difference between près de l’océan and something like à côté de l’océan or par l’océan?

• près de l’océan = near the ocean
  Neutral, very common; just says you are in the vicinity.
• à côté de l’océan = next to / beside the ocean
  Suggests being very close, right beside it.
• par l’océan can mean “by way of the ocean / via the ocean” in some contexts, or “by the ocean” in a more directional sense, but it is not how you’d normally say “near the ocean” in this kind of descriptive sentence.

For the idea “we are (walking) near the ocean”, the natural choice is près de l’océan.

Could we use on instead of nous, like On marche dans le sable chaud…? What’s the difference?

Yes, absolutely. In spoken French, on is very commonly used instead of nous to mean “we”:

• Nous marchons dans le sable chaud… (more formal / written)
• On marche dans le sable chaud… (very natural in conversation)

Grammatically:

• nous takes 1st person plural verb endings: nous marchons
• on takes 3rd person singular endings: on marche

Meaning-wise in everyday speech:

• on marche = “we walk / we are walking”
• Only in more formal or written contexts do people strongly prefer nous marchons.

How would you say “We are walking in the warm sand near the ocean right now” if you really wanted to emphasize “right now”?

You can use the expression être en train de:

• Nous sommes en train de marcher dans le sable chaud près de l’océan.

This construction makes the ongoing aspect very explicit, similar to English “We are in the middle of walking…”.
However, in most real-life situations, people would still just say:

• Nous marchons dans le sable chaud près de l’océan.

and let context show that it’s happening now.

How do you pronounce Nous marchons dans le sable chaud près de l’océan? Are there any important liaisons?

Approximate pronunciation (in English-friendly terms):

• Nous → “noo” (the final s is silent here)
• marchons → “mar-shon” (nasal on, like “ohn” in French)
• dans → “dahn” (nasal an, not “danZ”)
• le → “luh”
• sable → “sa-bl” (final e is very weak, almost like “sabl”)
• chaud → “sho” (final d is silent)
• près → “preh”
• de → “duh”
• l’océan → “lo-say-ahn” (with a nasal an at the end)

Important liaisons (optional but common in careful speech):

• Often: Nous‿marchons (linking the s of nous to the m of marchons → “noo-zmar-shon”) is not standard; note: here I must correct—s before m doesn’t normally liaison. So: be careful: there is no liaison here.
• No liaison in dans le.
• No liaison in sable chaud.
• No liaison between près de and l’océan.

So you can say it smoothly as:
Nous marchons dans le sable chaud près de l’océan.
with each word pronounced as above, keeping nous and marchons separate (no “z” sound between them).