Breakdown of Cette galerie organise souvent des événements durables où l'on parle de recyclage et d'art.
Questions & Answers about Cette galerie organise souvent des événements durables où l'on parle de recyclage et d'art.
In French, demonstrative adjectives must agree in gender and number with the noun:
- ce – masculine singular before a consonant (e.g. ce musée)
- cet – masculine singular before a vowel or mute h (e.g. cet hôtel)
- cette – feminine singular (before vowel or consonant) (e.g. cette galerie)
- ces – plural for both genders (e.g. ces galeries, ces musées)
Galerie is a feminine noun: une galerie, la galerie, so you must use cette galerie.
There is no masculine form un galerie in standard French.
In simple tenses (like the present), common adverbs such as souvent, toujours, parfois usually go after the conjugated verb:
- Cette galerie organise souvent des événements.
Putting souvent before the verb inside the clause (Cette galerie souvent organise…) sounds odd or very marked, almost poetic.
You can, however, move souvent to the beginning of the sentence for emphasis:
- Souvent, cette galerie organise des événements durables…
So:
- organise souvent – normal, natural word order.
- Souvent, cette galerie organise… – also correct, with emphasis on frequency.
- Cette galerie souvent organise… – grammatically possible but sounds unnatural in everyday French.
Des here is the indefinite plural article, roughly “(some) events” in English:
- Cette galerie organise souvent des événements…
= The gallery often organises (some) events… / often puts on events…
Other options would change the meaning:
les événements durables
= the sustainable events (specific ones already known, or the category in general).d'événements
Normally appears after a word of quantity or in the negative:- beaucoup d'événements (a lot of events)
- ne… pas d'événements (no events)
You cannot say organise d'événements without a quantity word; you need des événements in this structure.
Literally, durable in French means long‑lasting.
However, in modern usage, especially with nouns related to the environment (like développement durable), it very often means sustainable in the ecological sense.
In des événements durables où l'on parle de recyclage, the context (recycling, art, environment) strongly suggests:
- des événements durables ≈ sustainable events (eco‑friendly, with low environmental impact)
If you really wanted to insist on “events that last a long time”, you’d more likely say:
- des événements qui durent longtemps
- des événements de longue durée
By default, événements durables, especially near words like recyclage, will be read as “sustainable events” rather than “long‑lasting events”.
In French, most adjectives normally come after the noun:
- un livre intéressant (an interesting book)
- des décisions importantes (important decisions)
Some very frequent adjectives (beauty, age, goodness, size, etc.) usually come before the noun, like petit, grand, jeune, beau.
Durable is not one of those; it normally follows the noun:
- des solutions durables
- des événements durables
You could say de durables événements, but that sounds literary or very emphatic. In everyday French, événements durables is the natural order.
Here, où is a relative pronoun meaning roughly “where / in which” and it refers back to des événements durables:
- des événements durables où l'on parle de recyclage et d'art
= sustainable events where / during which people talk about recycling and art.
You could replace où with a more explicit relative structure:
- des événements durables dans lesquels on parle de recyclage et d'art
Both are grammatically correct. Où is shorter and very natural here; dans lesquels is a bit more formal or heavy. You cannot use quand in this sentence to mean “when/in which” referring to événements.
On is the indefinite subject pronoun meaning “one / people / we”.
Adding l' in front (making l'on) is mainly a matter of euphony (sound flow):
- où on parle – grammatically correct, but many speakers find the sound a bit awkward (vowel clash).
- où l'on parle – flows more smoothly.
The l' does not change the meaning at all. It is often used:
- after words like où, que, si, et, ou (où l'on, que l'on, si l'on, etc.),
- more in written or slightly formal French.
In everyday speech you will also hear plain on:
- des événements où on parle de recyclage et d'art – completely acceptable.
With the verb parler, the preposition changes the meaning:
parler de quelque chose = to talk about something
- parler de recyclage – talk about recycling
- parler de musique – talk about music
parler à quelqu'un = to talk to someone
- parler à un ami – talk to a friend
parler alone can just mean “to speak / to talk” (without specifying the topic):
- Il parle beaucoup. – He talks a lot.
So in où l'on parle de recyclage et d'art, the de is required because we’re specifying the subject of the conversation. Saying parler recyclage or parler à recyclage is incorrect.
Two points are involved here:
Elision of de → d'
In French, de becomes d' before a word starting with a vowel or mute h:- de art → d'art
- de histoire → d'histoire
So de art is simply not allowed; it must be d'art.
Repeating the preposition de
When you coordinate two nouns after parler de, you usually repeat de:- parler de recyclage et d'art
- parler de politique et d'économie
Here you see de twice:
- de recyclage
- d' (de) art
If the second noun began with a consonant, you would keep the full de:
- parler de recyclage et de musique
Key points:
Gender: événement is masculine
- un événement, des événements
Plural: add -s
- un événement durable
- des événements durables
Spelling:
You may see two forms:- événement (with é…e…e) – traditional spelling, still the most common.
- évènement (with è…è…) – accepted after the 1990 spelling reforms.
Both are considered correct, but événement is more widely used in print.