Learn Hardcore French: La nuit, la pollution sonore est moins forte dans notre quartier qu’au centre‑ville. - At night, noise pollution is weaker in our neighborhood than downtown.

La nuit here works like an adverbial time expression meaning “at night / during the night.”
French often uses a definite article (la, le) with time words where English does not:

Le matin, je bois du café. → In the morning, I drink coffee.
Le soir, / La nuit, → In the evening, / At night,

The comma after La nuit just separates this time phrase from the main clause, similar to English:

At night, the noise pollution is weaker…

Why is it la pollution sonore and not something like le bruit?

La pollution sonore is a set expression in French meaning noise pollution (unwanted or excessive noise in the environment).

la pollution = pollution (general idea)
sonore = related to sound (from son = sound)

You could say le bruit (the noise), but the nuance is different:

La pollution sonore est moins forte… → focuses on noise as a form of pollution / nuisance.
Le bruit est moins fort… → more simply: The noise is less loud…

Why is pollution feminine, and how does that affect sonore and forte?

In French, pollution is a feminine noun: la pollution.

Because the noun is feminine singular:

The adjective sonore stays in its basic form (it is the same for masculine and feminine singular).
The adjective fort must agree and becomes forte (adds -e for feminine):
la pollution sonore est moins forte
- forte = feminine singular form agreeing with la pollution.

If the noun were masculine, you would say:

Le bruit est moins fort (The noise is less loud).

What exactly does moins forte… que mean, and how does this comparison work?

Moins forte… que is a standard comparative structure:

moins + adjective + que = less + adjective + than

Here:

moins = less
forte = strong / intense / loud (agrees with pollution)
que (contracted to qu’ before a vowel sound) = than

So:

est moins forte… qu’au centre‑ville
→ is less strong / intense than in the city center.

Other patterns:

plus forte que = stronger than
aussi forte que = as strong as
moins forte que = less strong than

Why do we say pollution sonore est moins forte instead of il y a moins de pollution sonore?

Both are correct, but they emphasize slightly different things:

La pollution sonore est moins forte…
- Focus on the intensity of the pollution (how strong it is).
- Literally: Noise pollution is less strong…
Il y a moins de pollution sonore…
- Focus on the quantity or amount of pollution.
- Literally: There is less noise pollution…

In context, they often mean almost the same, but the original sentence chooses the adjective (forte) to describe the intensity of the pollution.

What is dans notre quartier, and why dans and not à?

Notre quartier = our neighborhood / district
dans here means in / within.

dans notre quartier → in our neighborhood

French often uses dans with areas you think of as “inside a space”:

dans notre quartier – in our neighborhood
dans cette rue – in this street
dans cette ville – in this city (seen as an interior space)

À is used more with places as points on a map (à Paris, à Lyon).
With quartier, dans notre quartier is the natural choice.

Why is it notre quartier and not nos quartiers?

Notre and nos both mean our, but:

notre is used with singular nouns.
nos is used with plural nouns.

Since quartier is singular here:

notre quartier = our neighborhood (one area)

If you had several neighborhoods, you would say:

nos quartiers = our neighborhoods.

What does qu’au stand for, and why is there an apostrophe?

Qu’au is the combination of:

que → than
au → à + le (to the / in the)

Before a word that starts with a vowel sound, que drops its -e and becomes qu’ (this is elision):

que + au → qu’au

So qu’au centre‑ville literally is:

que + au centre‑ville → than in the city center.

The apostrophe simply shows the elision of the e in que: que → qu’.

Why au centre‑ville instead of dans le centre‑ville?

Both exist, but they are used a bit differently:

au centre‑ville = in the city center / downtown
Very common, almost like a fixed expression.
dans le centre‑ville = also in the city center, but sounds a bit more literal, like “inside the city center area.”

In everyday speech, au centre‑ville is more idiomatic and compact.
Grammatically, au = à + le:

à le centre‑ville → au centre‑ville.

Why is centre‑ville hyphenated, and what gender is it?

Centre‑ville is usually written with a hyphen when it refers to the central part of a town/city (downtown). It functions as a single noun.

Its gender is masculine:

le centre‑ville
au centre‑ville (à + le)

Even though ville by itself is feminine (la ville), the compound centre‑ville is treated as masculine because centre (masculine) is the head of the compound.

Why is forte used here? In English we’d say “loud,” not “strong.”

In French, fort / forte is often used with sounds and noise to mean loud / strong / intense.

So:

un bruit fort = a loud noise
la musique est très forte = the music is very loud
la pollution sonore est moins forte = the noise pollution is less strong / less intense

Even though the literal translation of fort is strong, in contexts involving sound, it usually corresponds to loud in English.

Can we move la nuit to another position in the sentence?

Yes. La nuit is a time expression and can move around, just as in English:

La nuit, la pollution sonore est moins forte…
La pollution sonore, la nuit, est moins forte… (more marked, less common)
La pollution sonore est moins forte la nuit dans notre quartier qu’au centre‑ville.

The most natural alternatives are:

La nuit, la pollution sonore est moins forte…
La pollution sonore est moins forte la nuit…

What is the difference between la nuit and le soir?

Both relate to the end of the day, but:

le soir = the evening (roughly from after work until bedtime)
la nuit = the night (when it’s dark and people are generally asleep)

In this sentence, la nuit suggests the late hours / nighttime, when we normally expect less noise. Using le soir would shift the meaning towards in the evening rather than at night.