Learn Hardcore French: La psychologue lui dit que chaque émotion a un rôle important dans sa vie. - The psychologist tells her that each emotion has an important role in her life.

The noun psychologue itself doesn’t change; it’s the article (le / la) that tells you the gender of the person.
So la psychologue tells you the psychologist is a woman.

Why is there la (the) before psychologue? I thought professions in French usually don’t take an article.

Both are possible, but they’re used in different situations:

Without article when describing someone’s profession in a general way:
- Elle est psychologue. = She is a psychologist.
- Il est professeur. = He is a teacher.
With definite article when you mean “the specific X we’re talking about”:
- La psychologue lui dit… = The psychologist (the one we’re talking about, e.g. his therapist) tells him/her…
- Le professeur arrive. = The teacher is arriving.

So here, la psychologue refers to a specific person already known from context, not just “she’s a psychologist” in general.

What does lui mean here, and why do we say la psychologue lui dit instead of la psychologue dit à lui / à elle?

Lui is an indirect object pronoun meaning “to him” or “to her”.

The structure is:

dire quelque chose à quelqu’un
→ dire à quelqu’un que…
→ dire quelque chose à quelqu’un becomes with a pronoun:
- lui dire quelque chose = to say/tell something to him/her

In a simple sentence:

La psychologue dit quelque chose à Paul.
Replace à Paul with a pronoun:
La psychologue lui dit quelque chose.

So:

lui = “to him / to her”
It’s the correct indirect object pronoun for both masculine and feminine, singular.

You cannot say *dit à lui / à elle in normal French with a stressed pronoun unless you want to insist (and even then you’d keep lui):

La psychologue lui dit à lui spécialement… (with emphasis, but this is more advanced).

Why is the pronoun lui placed before dit and not after, like in English word order?

In French, object pronouns normally go before the conjugated verb:

La psychologue lui dit… = The psychologist tells him/her…
Je lui parle. = I’m talking to him/her.
Nous leur expliquons. = We explain to them.

The usual order is:
[subject] + [object pronoun] + [conjugated verb]

So the English word order “tells him” becomes in French “lui dit”, not “dit lui”.

Dit lui would be incorrect in this context.

Why is it dit (present tense) and not a dit (past) if in English I might say “The psychologist told him/her…”?

French often uses the present tense where English might use past, especially when:

You are narrating a story in the “historical present” (common in spoken French and storytelling):
- La psychologue lui dit que… = The psychologist (then) tells him that…
  Even if the situation happened in the past, the present makes the scene feel more immediate.
You’re talking about something that is currently true or habitually true:
- La psychologue lui dit (whenever he sees her, she tells him that…).

If you really want the past “told”, you’d say:

La psychologue lui a dit que… = The psychologist told him/her that…

Both are grammatically correct; the choice is about time reference and style.

Why is it dit que and not parle que or some other verb? What is the pattern with dire?

The verb dire works like this:

dire quelque chose = to say something
dire quelque chose à quelqu’un = to say/tell something to someone
dire à quelqu’un que… = to say/tell someone that…

So:

La psychologue lui dit que… = The psychologist tells him/her that…

You cannot say *parler que. With parler, the usual patterns are:

parler à quelqu’un = to talk to someone
parler de quelque chose = to talk about something

So:

La psychologue lui parle de ses émotions. = The psychologist talks to him about his/her emotions.
(not *parle que)

Here we want “tells him that…”, so dire … que is the natural choice.

Why is it que chaque émotion a and not que chaque émotion ait (subjunctive) or avait (imparfait)?

Two separate issues: mood (indicative vs. subjunctive) and tense.

Mood (a vs. ait)
- a = 3rd person singular of avoir in the indicative (factual) mood.
- ait = 3rd person singular of avoir in the subjunctive mood.

After dire que, you normally use the indicative if you’re reporting a fact or a belief presented as real:

La psychologue lui dit que chaque émotion a un rôle important…
→ She presents this as a general truth.

Subjunctive (e.g. que chaque émotion ait…) would be very unusual and not natural here.

Tense (a vs. avait)
- a = present (each emotion has an important role)
- avait = imperfect (each emotion had an important role)

We’re stating a general, timeless truth about emotions, so the present a is the normal choice.
Avait would suggest a past situation, no longer necessarily valid.

Why is chaque émotion singular? Could I say toutes les émotions ont un rôle instead?

Chaque is always followed by a singular noun and a singular verb:

chaque émotion a
chaque personne est
chaque jour compte

It means “each” or “every” taken one by one.

You can say:

Toutes les émotions ont un rôle important. = All emotions have an important role.

Both are correct, but there’s a nuance:

chaque émotion a = focuses on each individual emotion having its own role.
toutes les émotions ont = focuses on the group as a whole.

In the original sentence, chaque underlines that every single emotion matters individually.

How do I know that émotion is feminine? Why chaque émotion and not chaque émotione or something like that?

The gender of French nouns is largely arbitrary and must be learned with the noun. Émotion happens to be feminine:

une émotion
cette émotion
chaque émotion

The form émotion itself doesn’t change with gender; what changes is the article or determiner in front of it:

une émotion vs. un problème
toute émotion vs. tout problème

So you just have to learn émotion = feminine.

Why is it un rôle important (masculine) and not une rôle importante?

Because rôle is a masculine noun in French:

un rôle (a role)
le rôle (the role)

The adjective important must agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies:

Masculine singular: un rôle important
Feminine singular: une chose importante
Masculine plural: des rôles importants
Feminine plural: des choses importantes

Here, rôle is masculine singular, so the adjective is important (no extra e).

Why do we say dans sa vie and not dans la vie or dans sa propre vie?

All three are possible, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing.

dans sa vie = in his/her life
→ Refers to the life of a specific person (usually the person the psychologist is talking to).
dans la vie = in life (in general)
→ Very general, like a philosophical statement:
- Dans la vie, chaque émotion a un rôle important. = In life, every emotion has an important role.
dans sa propre vie = in his/her own life
→ Adds emphasis: in their own life personally.

In the sentence:

La psychologue lui dit que chaque émotion a un rôle important dans sa vie.

Sa vie most naturally refers to the life of the person being spoken to (the one represented by lui), but grammatically it’s ambiguous; only context makes it clear.

Who exactly does sa in dans sa vie refer to? The psychologist or the person she’s speaking to?

Grammatically, sa could refer to any third-person singular subject mentioned in the broader context (his/her life). On its own, the sentence is ambiguous.

However, in normal real-life context:

La psychologue lui dit que chaque émotion a un rôle important dans sa vie.

we almost always understand sa vie as the life of the person being helped (the one represented by lui). That fits the meaning of what a psychologist would say to a patient: “in your life”.

To avoid ambiguity, French sometimes makes it explicit:

…dans votre vie. (if speaking politely: “in your life”)
…dans la vie de ce patient. (“in this patient’s life”)
…dans sa propre vie. (“in his/her own life” – still a bit ambiguous without context).

Why dans sa vie and not en sa vie? How do dans and en differ here?

For this meaning in French, you say dans sa vie, not *en sa vie.

dans is used for “in, inside (something)” in a more concrete or structured sense:
- dans la maison, dans le livre, dans sa vie.
en is used in many other expressions (languages, materials, transport, time expressions, etc.), but not with vie in this sense.

Idiomatic expressions:

dans sa vie = in his/her life
dans la vie = in (general) life
dans ma vie = in my life

*en sa vie would be incorrect here.

How is dit pronounced in lui dit que? Is the final t pronounced before que?

Dit is pronounced like “dee” in English:

IPA: /di/

In standard French, there is no liaison after dit here, so the t is silent:

lui dit que → /lɥi di kə/

You do not pronounce it like “dit-t que”.
So you hear three syllables: lui – dit – que.