Breakdown of Pour remercier les bénévoles, l’organisatrice choisit une bénévole comme invitée d’honneur du festival.
Questions & Answers about Pour remercier les bénévoles, l’organisatrice choisit une bénévole comme invitée d’honneur du festival.
Pour remercier literally means “in order to thank”.
French often uses pour + infinitive to express purpose:
- Pour remercier les bénévoles = In order to thank the volunteers
- Je viens pour t’aider. = I’m coming (in order) to help you.
You cannot use a conjugated verb after pour in this structure; it must be an infinitive:
- ✅ Pour remercier les bénévoles, …
- ❌ Pour remercie les bénévoles, …
- ❌ Pour qu’elle remercie les bénévoles, … (this would require pour que
- subjunctive and a different structure)
Yes. Afin de remercier les bénévoles is also correct and means the same thing: in order to thank the volunteers.
- Pour remercier… – very common, neutral, used in all kinds of contexts.
- Afin de remercier… – a bit more formal, common in written or official French.
Both are grammatically correct and interchangeable in this sentence.
Les bénévoles here refers to the whole known group of volunteers (for the festival). The definite article les is used:
- when we mean a specific, identified group:
- Les bénévoles du festival = the volunteers (of this festival)
- also for generic groups:
- Les chats sont des animaux indépendants. = Cats are independent animals.
If you said des bénévoles, it would sound more like:
- “some volunteers” (an unspecified number)
- Pour remercier des bénévoles = to thank some volunteers (not necessarily all of them)
In this context, the idea is that she wants to thank all the volunteers, so les is natural.
Un/une bénévole is someone who works for free, without pay, usually for an association, charity, or event. It focuses on unpaid work.
Un/une volontaire can mean:
- Someone who volunteered (offered to do something) – more general.
- In some contexts, someone in civil or military service (e.g. un volontaire dans l’armée).
Often, for events or charities, bénévole is the standard word:
- Les bénévoles du festival = the unpaid helpers at the festival.
You could say les volontaires du festival, but it’s less idiomatic; it emphasizes that they volunteered themselves, not specifically that the work is unpaid.
French nouns referring to people often have a masculine form and a feminine form:
- un organisateur (masc.)
- une organisatrice (fem.)
In the sentence, the organizer is a woman, so the feminine form organisatrice is used, with the feminine article:
- l’organisatrice = the (female) organizer
The l’ is just the elided form of la (or le) before a vowel sound:
- la organisatrice → l’organisatrice (correct, with apostrophe)
Choisit is the present tense of choisir (to choose):
- l’organisatrice choisit = the organizer chooses / is choosing
This can be understood in a few ways:
As a general statement or habitual action:
- She (typically) chooses one volunteer as guest of honour to thank them.
As a kind of narrative present (present used to tell a story, common in written French):
- For example, in a report or article describing what happens each year.
If you want a specific past event:
- Pour remercier les bénévoles, l’organisatrice a choisi une bénévole…
= …the organizer chose a volunteer…
For a planned future event:
- …l’organisatrice choisira une bénévole…
= …will choose a volunteer…
- une bénévole = a volunteer (one, but not specified which)
- la bénévole = the volunteer (a specific, already identified one)
- une des bénévoles = one of the volunteers (explicitly one member of the group)
In this sentence, we’re introducing the idea that she picks some volunteer from the group, not one we already know, and not emphasizing “one of them” as a separate notion, so une bénévole is the most neutral:
- l’organisatrice choisit une bénévole
= the organizer chooses a volunteer (from among them).
You could say une des bénévoles if you really want to stress “one of the volunteers”, but it’s not necessary; it’s understood from context that the person chosen comes from that group.
French typically marks feminine gender on adjectives and many nouns with an extra -e:
- invité (masc.) → invitée (fem.)
Here, invitée is feminine because it refers to une bénévole (a woman volunteer):
- une invitée d’honneur = a (female) guest of honour.
Bénévole, on the other hand, has the same written form for masculine and feminine:
- un bénévole (masc.)
- une bénévole (fem.)
The gender is shown only by the article (un/une, le/la), not by changing the ending of the word itself.
Comme here means “as”:
- choisit une bénévole comme invitée d’honneur
= chooses a volunteer as guest of honour.
You could also say:
- en tant qu’invitée d’honneur = in the capacity of / in the role of guest of honour.
Differences:
- comme – very common, simple, neutral:
- Je travaille comme professeur. = I work as a teacher.
- en tant que – a bit more formal, emphasizes the function/role:
- En tant que présidente, elle doit décider. = As president, she must decide.
In this sentence, both comme invitée d’honneur and en tant qu’invitée d’honneur are grammatically fine; comme is just more straightforward.
Du is the contraction of de + le:
- de = of / from
- le = the (masculine singular)
So:
- du festival = de le festival → of the festival.
We use du because festival is masculine:
- le festival → du festival
- If it were feminine, it would be:
- la fête → de la fête (no contraction)
Can we change the word order and say:
L’organisatrice choisit une bénévole comme invitée d’honneur du festival pour remercier les bénévoles?
Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct and would be understood.
However, starting with Pour remercier les bénévoles puts the purpose at the beginning and makes it clearer from the start that we’re explaining why she chooses a volunteer:
- Pour remercier les bénévoles, l’organisatrice…
→ Focuses first on the reason.
If you put pour remercier les bénévoles at the end, it’s still correct, but the emphasis is slightly different and the sentence feels a bit heavier:
- L’organisatrice choisit… du festival pour remercier les bénévoles.
Both are acceptable; the original order is a bit more elegant and natural.
Current sentence (female organizer, female guest):
- Pour remercier les bénévoles, l’organisatrice choisit une bénévole comme invitée d’honneur du festival.
Male organizer, female guest of honour
- Pour remercier les bénévoles, l’organisateur choisit une bénévole comme invitée d’honneur du festival.
Female organizer, male guest of honour
- Pour remercier les bénévoles, l’organisatrice choisit un bénévole comme invité d’honneur du festival.
Male organizer, male guest of honour
- Pour remercier les bénévoles, l’organisateur choisit un bénévole comme invité d’honneur du festival.
Only the words that are marked for gender (organisateur / organisatrice, un/une bénévole, invité / invitée) change. The rest of the sentence remains the same.