À l'ouest de la ville, la mer est magnifique.

to be

Breakdown of À l'ouest de la ville, la mer est magnifique.

• la ville: the city
• à: to
• de: of

Questions & Answers about À l'ouest de la ville, la mer est magnifique.

Why does the sentence start with À l'ouest de la ville instead of putting that at the end?

French is flexible with word order for location phrases. Both are correct:

• À l'ouest de la ville, la mer est magnifique.
• La mer est magnifique à l'ouest de la ville.

The difference is emphasis:

• 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?