Breakdown of Paul appelle la police pour sauver le chat.
Questions & Answers about Paul appelle la police pour sauver le chat.
Appeler is the infinitive form (to call). In the sentence, Paul is the subject, so you need the verb conjugated in the present tense:
- j’appelle
- tu appelles
- il / elle / on appelle
- nous appelons
- vous appelez
- ils / elles appellent
Paul is he → il appelle.
That’s why we use appelle (3rd person singular), not the infinitive appeler, and not appelles (which is for tu).
In French, appeler quelqu’un means to call someone (literally call + direct object). So you say:
- appeler la police – to call the police
- appeler un ami – to call a friend
You do not use à here.
If you add à, you change the structure and it becomes ungrammatical in standard French: ✗ appeler à la police is wrong in this meaning.
Both can translate as to call the police, but:
appeler la police
- Very common, very direct.
- Literally “to call the police” (using appeler + direct object).
- Can be used in urgent situations: Appelle la police ! (Call the police!)
téléphoner à la police
- Slightly more formal or explicit about using the phone.
- Uses the structure téléphoner à + indirect object.
Meaning-wise, in context they’re basically the same, but appeler la police is the more idiomatic “emergency” phrase.
In French, nouns almost always need an article (or a determiner: la, le, les, un, une, des, ma, cette, etc.).
Police is a feminine noun, so its definite article is la:
- la police – the police
You cannot normally say ✗ Paul appelle police; that sounds wrong. You need la.
Grammatical gender in French is largely arbitrary and must be memorized with each noun.
- police happens to be feminine, so we say la police (not le police).
This doesn’t mean the actual police officers are all female; it’s just a property of the word itself.
When you learn a noun in French, it’s best to learn it together with its article:
- la police (feminine)
- le chat (masculine)
- la voiture (feminine)
- le livre (masculine)
le is the definite article (the), while un is indefinite (a).
- le chat – the cat (a specific cat that we have in mind)
- un chat – a cat (any cat, not specific)
Using le chat suggests that speaker and listener already know which cat is involved (maybe “the neighbor’s cat”, “their cat”, etc.).
If you said pour sauver un chat, it would sound like “to save a cat” in general, some random or unknown cat.
Yes, but it changes the meaning slightly:
- pour sauver le chat – to save the cat (a specific, known cat)
- pour sauver son chat – to save his/her cat
Son chat adds the idea of possession (it’s someone’s cat, usually Paul’s or some previously mentioned person’s). Use it if you want to emphasize whose cat it is.
Grammatically:
- un chat – a male cat (or generic cat)
- une chatte – a female cat
However, in everyday language, people often use chat (with masculine article le / un) as the neutral word for “cat”, without focusing on the animal’s sex.
Also, chatte has some vulgar slang meanings referring to female anatomy, so many speakers avoid using it outside of clearly pet-related contexts.
In a simple sentence like this, le chat is perfectly natural even if the actual cat happens to be female.
Here pour introduces a purpose: it means “in order to / to”.
Structure: pour + infinitive
- pour sauver le chat – to save the cat / in order to save the cat
- pour manger – to eat / in order to eat
- pour comprendre – to understand / in order to understand
So Paul appelle la police pour sauver le chat = Paul calls the police with the purpose of saving the cat.
With an infinitive verb expressing purpose, French uses pour + infinitive, with no extra preposition:
- pour sauver – to save
- pour aider – to help
- pour apprendre – to learn
Constructions like ✗ pour à sauver or ✗ pour de sauver are incorrect.
You just say pour + [infinitive].
After pour when expressing purpose, French uses the infinitive:
- pour sauver le chat – to save the cat
- pour aider Paul – to help Paul
- pour comprendre la phrase – to understand the sentence
So you do not conjugate this verb; it remains in the infinitive sauver, not sauve, sauvent, etc.
Yes, French word order is somewhat flexible for emphasis. Your example:
- Paul, pour sauver le chat, appelle la police.
This is grammatically correct and sounds a bit more literary or emphatic, highlighting the purpose (pour sauver le chat) first.
However, the most natural, neutral order in everyday speech is the original:
- Paul appelle la police pour sauver le chat.
Appelle here is present indicative: Paul appelle = “Paul calls / Paul is calling”.
In French, the present tense often covers both:
- simple present: “Paul calls the police.”
- present progressive: “Paul is calling the police.”
For the future, you have options:
- Paul appellera la police. – Paul will call the police. (simple future)
- Paul va appeler la police. – Paul is going to call the police. (near future)
Pronunciation (in IPA): [apɛl]
- The -e at the end is silent here.
- There are two “p” and two “l” in spelling, but they don’t double the sound; you still say [apɛl], not “ap-pelle” with two separate p sounds.
- Roughly, it rhymes with English “a-PEL” (but with a more open ɛ sound like in “bed”).
Normally, you’ll pronounce it as:
- pour – [puʁ]
- sauver – [sove]
- le – [lə]
- chat – [ʃa]
There is no required liaison between these words. You normally do not link final consonants here:
- Not *[puʁ‿sove], just [puʁ sove].
- Not *[sove‿lə], just [sove lə].
So it’s pronounced smoothly but without obligatory liaisons in this sequence.
Yes, but then you change from a statement to a command:
Paul appelle la police pour sauver le chat.
– A statement about Paul (He is calling / calls the police).Appelle la police pour sauver le chat !
– An imperative (command) addressed to tu (“Call the police to save the cat!”).
So dropping Paul doesn’t just shorten the sentence; it changes its function and subject.