Learn Hardcore French: Ce journal local parle de notre village. - This local newspaper talks about our village.

ce: before a masculine singular noun starting with a consonant
- ce journal, ce livre, ce garçon
cet: before a masculine singular noun starting with a vowel or mute h
- cet homme, cet arbre, cet hôtel
cette: before a feminine singular noun
- cette voiture, cette fille, cette table

Because journal is masculine, singular, and begins with the consonant sound /ʒ/ (the j), the correct form is ce journal.
Cet journal is impossible, and cette journal would be wrong because journal is not feminine.

What does journal mean here? Does it mean “diary” or “newspaper”?

The French word un journal has two common meanings:

A newspaper – as in something you buy to read the news.
A diary / personal journal – something you write your thoughts in.

Context tells you which. In Ce journal local parle de notre village:

It has local as an adjective.
It “talks about our village”, which sounds like something a newspaper would do.

So here journal clearly means “newspaper”.

Note: the plural form is irregular:

un journal → des journaux (not journals).

Why is local placed after journal? Could you say Ce local journal?

In French, most adjectives normally come after the noun:

un livre intéressant (an interesting book)
une maison rouge (a red house)
un journal local (a local newspaper)

So journal local (noun + adjective) is the standard order.

You cannot say Ce local journal to mean “this local newspaper”:

Ce local journal is ungrammatical in this sense.
local can also be a noun in French (meaning “premises / room / space”), but that’s a different word and doesn’t apply here.

So the correct and natural order is Ce journal local.

Does Ce journal local mean “this local newspaper” or “the local newspaper”? Is there a difference in French?

Literally, Ce journal local means “this local newspaper” (or “that local newspaper”).

However, in real usage:

Ce journal local can often refer to a specific paper that everyone knows, and English might translate that naturally as “the local newspaper”.
If you wanted to say “the local newspaper” more literally, you would usually use le:
- Le journal local parle de notre village.

So:

Ce journal local → “this local newspaper” (or sometimes “that local paper” / “this local paper”).
Le journal local → “the local newspaper”.

The French sentence with ce slightly emphasizes this particular paper, not just any local paper.

What tense and person is parle?

Parle here is:

Present tense
3rd person singular (he/she/it)

It’s the form of parler with il / elle / on or a singular subject like ce journal:

je parle – I speak / I am speaking
tu parles – you speak (singular, informal)
il / elle / on parle – he / she / one speaks
nous parlons – we speak
vous parlez – you speak (plural or formal)
ils / elles parlent – they speak

In Ce journal local parle de notre village, the present tense expresses a general, habitual fact:
“This local newspaper talks about / covers our village (as a rule).”

Why is it parle de and not just parle? What does parler de mean?

The verb parler works differently depending on the structure:

parler de + noun / pronoun
- Means “to talk about / to be about”
- Ce journal parle de notre village.
  → “This newspaper talks about / is about our village.”
- Ce film parle de la guerre.
  → “This film is about the war.”
parler + language (no preposition)
- Je parle français. – I speak French.
- Ils parlent anglais. – They speak English.
parler à / avec quelqu’un
- parler à quelqu’un – to talk to someone
- parler avec quelqu’un – to talk with someone

So for the meaning “talk about / be about”, French requires de:
You need parler de + [topic], not just parler + [topic].

Can you say parler sur to mean “talk about”, like in English “a talk on X”?

For “to talk about something”, you should almost always use parler de, not parler sur:

Correct:
- Ils parlent de politique. – They talk about politics.
- Ce livre parle de musique. – This book is about music.
Incorrect for “about”:
- Ils parlent sur politique. ✗
- Ce livre parle sur musique. ✗

Be careful: parler sur quelqu’un does exist but usually means:

to speak badly about someone / to gossip about someone

Example:

Arrête de parler sur lui. – Stop badmouthing him.

You might see un livre sur la musique (“a book about music”), where sur is fine.
But with the verb parler, the natural choice for “about” is de, not sur.

Why is it de notre village and not du notre village or de le village?

A few rules meet here:

de + le contracts to du:
- de + le village → du village
- Ce journal parle du village. – This newspaper talks about the village.
But when we use a possessive adjective like notre (“our”), we don’t use le / la / les:
- notre village – our village (no article in front)
- So we have de + notre village, not de le notre village.
Since de is followed by notre, there is no contraction:
- de notre village is correct.
- du notre village is wrong (there is no le there to contract).

So:

du village = “of the village / about the village” (no “our”)
de notre village = “of our village / about our village”

In this sentence, we specifically want “our village”, so de notre village is the correct form.

What exactly does notre mean, and why not nos?

Notre and nos both mean “our”, but they differ in number:

notre: singular noun (any gender)
- notre village – our village
- notre maison – our house
nos: plural noun (any gender)
- nos villages – our villages
- nos maisons – our houses

In Ce journal local parle de notre village, village is singular, so you must use notre, not nos.
If you were talking about several villages, you’d say:

Ce journal local parle de nos villages. – This local newspaper talks about our villages.

Does notre change for masculine and feminine, like mon / ma?

No. Notre does not change with gender; it only changes with number:

notre – our (before a singular noun, masculine or feminine)
- notre village (m.)
- notre école (f.)
nos – our (before a plural noun, masculine or feminine)
- nos villages (m. pl.)
- nos écoles (f. pl.)

Compare with mon / ma / mes (for “my”), which do change with gender:

mon village (m. sing.)
ma maison (f. sing.)
mes amis (plural)

For “our”, you only need to think about singular vs plural, not masculine vs feminine.

What’s the difference between village and ville?

Both can sometimes be translated as “town” in English, but in French they are different:

un village
- Usually small, rural or semi-rural.
- More like “village” or sometimes a small town.
une ville
- Larger, more urban.
- “town” or “city”.

In notre village, the idea is of a smaller, local community, not a big town or city.

How would the sentence change in the plural, for example “These local newspapers talk about our village”?

You’d need to make every relevant word agree in the plural:

Ce journal local parle de notre village.
→ Ces journaux locaux parlent de notre village.

Changes:

Ce → Ces (this → these / those)
journal → journaux (irregular plural)
local → locaux (adjective agrees with the plural masculine noun)
parle → parlent (3rd person singular → 3rd person plural)
notre village stays the same (still one village, so notre is singular)

Meaning: “These local newspapers talk about our village.”