Learn Hardcore French: En ville, les embouteillages sont longs, mais les citadins s'y habituent. - In the city, traffic jams are long, but city dwellers get used to them.

En ville, les embouteillages sont longs, mais les citadins s'y habituent.

In the city, traffic jams are long, but city dwellers get used to them.

Breakdown of En ville, les embouteillages sont longs, mais les citadins s'y habituent.

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Questions & Answers about En ville, les embouteillages sont longs, mais les citadins s'y habituent.

What exactly does En ville mean here, and why is it at the beginning of the sentence?

En ville literally means in town / in the city, but it’s used in a general sense: in urban areas or in (the) city as a type of place, not one specific city.

Putting En ville at the start emphasizes the setting:

En ville, les embouteillages sont longs…
= In cities, traffic jams are long…

You could also say:

Les embouteillages sont longs en ville.

Both are correct. Starting with En ville just foregrounds the context (city life) before mentioning the problem (traffic jams).

Why is there les in les embouteillages? In English I’d just say “traffic jams in the city” without the.

French usually uses the definite article (le, la, les) for general statements about a whole category of things:

Les embouteillages sont longs en ville.
= Traffic jams are long in cities (in general).

So les embouteillages doesn’t mean these specific traffic jams but traffic jams as a general phenomenon. The definite article is normal in that kind of generalization.

Why is the adjective longs and not long or longues?

Embouteillages is:

masculine
plural

So the adjective long must agree:

masculine singular: long
feminine singular: longue
masculine plural: longs
feminine plural: longues

Since les embouteillages is masculine plural, the correct form is longs:

les embouteillages sont longs

Also, longs here refers to time (they last a long time), not physical length.

What’s the difference between embouteillage and bouchon?

Both can mean traffic jam, but there are nuances:

un embouteillage
Common, neutral word for a traffic jam.
un bouchon
Informal / everyday word for a traffic jam; literally a cork / stopper (like for a bottle).

In many contexts, they’re interchangeable:

Il y a un embouteillage sur l’autoroute.
Il y a un bouchon sur l’autoroute.

Both mean: There’s a traffic jam on the highway.

What does citadins mean exactly? Is it just “people”?

Un citadin / une citadine is specifically:

a city-dweller, someone who lives in a city

So les citadins = city-dwellers, people who live in the city.

It’s more specific than:

les gens = people (in general)
les habitants = inhabitants, residents (could be of a village, a region, etc.)

In this sentence, les citadins emphasizes that these are urban residents.

Why is citadins plural? Could it be singular?

It’s plural because we’re talking about city-dwellers in general, not one specific person.

Les citadins s’y habituent.
= City-dwellers get used to it.

You could make a generic statement with the singular:

Le citadin s’y habitue.
= The city-dweller gets used to it (city-dwellers in general).

But using the plural with les for generalizations (like les Français, les enfants, les citadins) is very common and sounds natural.

How does s’y habituent work? What are all these bits?

S’y habituent breaks down like this:

se (here s’) – reflexive pronoun
y – pronoun meaning to it / to that / to there
habituent – 3rd person plural of habituer (from s’habituer à)

The base verb is:

s’habituer à quelque chose = to get used to something

In les citadins s’y habituent:

se refers to les citadins (they themselves)
y replaces à quelque chose (here: to traffic jams in the city)

So s’y habituent = get used to it.

Why do we use y and not en in s’y habituent?

French uses different pronouns depending on the preposition:

y replaces à + noun / idea / situation
en replaces de + noun or a quantity of something

The verb is s’habituer à:

s’habituer à quelque chose → s’y habituer

So we need y, not en.

Compare:

Je m’habitue à la vie en ville. → Je m’y habitue.
Je me souviens de cette période. → Je m’en souviens.

Could we just say les citadins s’habituent aux embouteillages instead of s’y habituent?

Yes, that’s perfectly correct:

Les citadins s’habituent aux embouteillages.

Meaning is the same: City-dwellers get used to traffic jams.

In the original sentence, y is used to avoid repeating aux embouteillages. This is very typical in French:

First mention: les embouteillages sont longs
Second mention: replace aux embouteillages with y
→ les citadins s’y habituent

Both versions are fine; the pronoun version is more concise.

Why is it s’y habituent and not y s’habituent?

French has a fixed order for object pronouns, and they come before the verb.

For se and y, the order is:

me, te, se, nous, vous
then y / en
then the verb

So:

les citadins s’y habituent (correct)
les citadins y s’habituent (incorrect)

Verb form also must stay together: s’habituer → s’habituent, with pronouns in front.

Why is the verb in simple present (sont, s’y habituent) and not something like “are getting used to it”?

French uses the simple present much more widely than English:

Les embouteillages sont longs.
= Traffic jams are long.
Les citadins s’y habituent.
= City-dwellers (are) get(ting) used to it.

English often prefers a progressive form are getting used to, but French doesn’t need a special tense for that; the ordinary present covers both:

Ils s’y habituent.
= They get used to it / They are getting used to it.

Context determines whether it feels more like a general fact or an ongoing process.

What does mais add here? Could we use pourtant or cependant instead?

Mais is the basic conjunction meaning but. It introduces a contrast:

Les embouteillages sont longs, mais les citadins s’y habituent.
= Traffic jams are long, but city-dwellers get used to it.

You could say:

Les embouteillages sont longs. Pourtant, les citadins s’y habituent.
Les embouteillages sont longs. Cependant, les citadins s’y habituent.

Pourtant and cependant are more like however / nevertheless, and they usually start a new sentence or clause, slightly more formal. Mais is the most neutral and common for everyday speech.

Is the comma after En ville required? Could I write the sentence without it?

Here En ville is a fronted adverbial phrase (a little chunk of contextual information put at the start). In French, it is standard to separate it with a comma:

En ville, les embouteillages sont longs…

You could say:

Les embouteillages sont longs en ville…

In that version you usually don’t put a comma, because en ville is at the end rather than as a detached element at the beginning. So:

At the beginning: En ville, … → comma normal
At the end: … en ville. → normally no comma