Learn Hardcore French: À l'ouest de la ville, la mer est magnifique. - To the west of the city, the sea is beautiful.

Starting with À l'ouest de la ville puts the focus on where we are talking about, as a setting.
Placing it at the end is more neutral and focuses first on la mer.

In written French, it’s very common to start a sentence with a place or time expression, then separate it with a comma, exactly as in this sentence.

Why is there an accent on À at the beginning?

The accent distinguishes two different words:

à (with accent) = a preposition meaning “at / in / to”.
a (no accent) = the verb avoir in the 3rd person singular, “has”.

In À l'ouest de la ville, we need the preposition à, so it must have the accent. At the very beginning of a sentence it’s capitalized: À.

Why is it l'ouest and not just ouest?

In French, cardinal points (north, south, east, west) usually take a definite article when used as nouns:

l’ouest – the west
l’est – the east
le nord – the north
le sud – the south

Here, ouest starts with a vowel sound, so le ouest becomes l’ouest (elision with an apostrophe) to make pronunciation smoother.

English often says just “west of the city”, but French normally says “to the west of the city” = à l’ouest de la ville, with the article.

Why is it de la ville and not something like à la ville?

The structure in French is:

à l’ouest de [something] = to the west of [something]

So you need de, not à, after ouest:

à l’ouest de la ville = to the west of the city

De here shows the point of reference (of the city).
À la ville would mean “in the city / to the city”, which is not the meaning we want.

Also note:

de + la = de la (no change)
de + le = du
de + les = des

So:

à l’ouest de la ville – west of the city
à l’ouest du village – west of the village
à l’ouest des montagnes – west of the mountains

Why is ville feminine here? How would this change if it were masculine?

The noun ville (city, town) is always feminine in French:

la ville – the city
une ville – a city

That’s why we say de la ville.

If the reference noun were masculine, the form of de + article would change. For example:

le village → du village
- À l’ouest du village, la mer est magnifique.

But the structure stays the same: à l’ouest de + [noun with article].

Why is it la mer and not une mer or just mer?

In French, when you talk about something specific in context, or about a natural feature (the sea, the sky, the sun, etc.), you usually use the definite article:

la mer – the sea
la mer est magnifique – the sea is magnificent

You wouldn’t normally say:

une mer est magnifique – that would sound like “a sea is magnificent”, as if you were describing one random sea among many.
Bare mer est magnifique is incorrect: French almost always needs an article in front of a singular common noun.

So la mer est magnifique is the natural, idiomatic way to say “the sea is beautiful”.

Why is the adjective magnifique placed after the verb and not before la mer?

In French, the normal pattern for describing something is:

[subject] + [verb être] + [adjective]

So:

La mer est magnifique. – The sea is magnificent.

You generally do not say “la magnifique mer” in French; that sounds literary or poetic, and even then it’s rarer.

Compare:

English: The beautiful sea is calm.
French: La mer est belle et calme. (not la belle mer est calme in neutral speech)

Most adjectives in French come after the noun if they directly modify it (e.g. une maison rouge). But with être, the adjective simply follows the verb, just like English “is beautiful”.

Could I say La mer est belle instead of magnifique? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can say La mer est belle, and it’s perfectly correct.

belle = beautiful, pretty, nice to look at
magnifique = magnificent, stunning, spectacular, really impressive

Magnifique is stronger and more expressive than belle. It suggests that the sea is not just pretty, but really striking.

Is there any liaison or special pronunciation I should be aware of in la mer est magnifique?

Key points for pronunciation:

la mer – final r is pronounced; sounds like “la mehr”, not like English “mare”.
est – pronounced like “è” ([ɛ]); the final -st is silent.
magnifique – roughly “mah-nyi-feek”:
- gn = like the “ni” in onion.
- Final -que = “k”.

There is no required liaison between mer and est here in standard speech. You normally say:

[la mer] [è magnifique]

with a tiny pause, not “la mer-est magnifique” with a linked r.

Why is there a comma after ville? Is it mandatory?

The comma separates the initial place phrase from the main clause:

À l’ouest de la ville, → setting / location
la mer est magnifique. → main statement

In French, when you start a sentence with a longer location or time expression, it’s very common and stylistically preferred to use a comma. It’s not absolutely “grammatically mandatory”, but leaving it out would look odd to most readers:

À l’ouest de la ville la mer est magnifique. – possible, but looks poorly punctuated.
À l’ouest de la ville, la mer est magnifique. – natural and standard.