Breakdown of Les enfants courent dans la maison et ils se font mal.
Questions & Answers about Les enfants courent dans la maison et ils se font mal.
In French, you normally need an article before a common noun.
- Les enfants = the children (a specific group, or children in general as a category).
- Des enfants = (some) children (an unspecified number of children, not a known group).
- Bare Enfants (without an article) is not correct in normal sentences.
Here, the speaker is talking about a particular set of children (e.g. the children in the house right now), so les is used.
French usually uses the simple present to cover both:
- English “run”
- and English “are running”
So:
- Les enfants courent dans la maison.
= The children run in the house / The children are running in the house.
French does have a progressive form: être en train de + infinitive, for example:
- Les enfants sont en train de courir.
= The children are in the middle of running / are running (right now, in progress).
But that form is used only when you really want to emphasize that the action is in progress at this very moment. In most cases, including this sentence, simple courent is the natural choice.
They are not interchangeable:
dans la maison
- Literally: inside the house.
- Focuses on physical location: they are running inside the building.
à la maison
- Idiomatic: at home.
- Focuses more on the idea of being at home (as opposed to being out), not on being inside the building as a physical space.
So:
Les enfants courent dans la maison.
= The children are running inside the house (maybe in the hallway, living room, etc.).Les enfants sont à la maison.
= The children are at home (not out), with no information about what exactly they’re doing there.
In your sentence, we want to highlight that the running happens inside the house, so dans la maison is used.
French almost always uses an article with common nouns:
- la maison = the house
- une maison = a house
- les maisons = the houses
English sometimes drops the article (“at home”, “in school”), but French normally does not.
There is a fixed expression à la maison = at home; note it still has la.
Bare maison (without an article) is not used on its own in this context.
Both versions are possible:
- Les enfants courent dans la maison et se font mal.
- Les enfants courent dans la maison et ils se font mal.
In French, when you have the same subject for two verbs joined by et, you can drop the repeated subject pronoun:
- Les enfants courent et crient.
- Les enfants courent et ils crient.
The version without the second ils is a bit more compact and is very natural.
The version with ils can give a tiny bit more emphasis or clarity, but grammatically both are fine.
Se font mal comes from the reflexive verb se faire mal.
- faire mal à quelqu’un = to hurt someone / cause pain to someone
- se faire mal = to hurt oneself (cause pain to oneself, usually accidentally)
So:
- Ils se font mal.
Literally: They make themselves hurt.
Idiomatically: They hurt themselves / They are getting hurt.
It’s a reflexive construction: se refers back to the subject ils.
Structure:
- ils (subject)
- se (reflexive pronoun)
- font (3rd person plural of faire)
- mal (here: a noun meaning pain / harm, used adverbially = painfully / in a way that hurts)
They all relate to pain or injury, but with different nuances:
se faire mal
- Focus on the action that causes pain, often accidental.
- Not necessarily very serious.
- Examples:
- Je me suis fait mal en tombant. = I hurt myself when I fell.
- Fais attention, tu vas te faire mal. = Be careful, you’re going to hurt yourself.
se blesser
- More about getting injured, sometimes sounds more serious or medical.
- Often implies a visible injury (cut, bruise, broken bone, etc.).
- Examples:
- Il s’est blessé au genou. = He injured his knee.
- Plusieurs personnes se sont blessées dans l’accident.
avoir mal (à …)
- Describes feeling pain, not how it happened.
- Structure: avoir mal + (à + body part)
- Examples:
- J’ai mal. = I’m in pain.
- J’ai mal à la tête. = I have a headache.
- Elle a mal au dos. = Her back hurts.
In your sentence, ils se font mal emphasizes that by running around, they are (repeatedly / generally) doing things that cause them to hurt themselves.
In se faire mal, mal is historically a noun meaning harm, pain, but in modern usage it behaves a bit like an adverb meaning in a way that hurts / painfully.
Some patterns:
le mal (noun):
- le mal et le bien = evil and good
- le mal de tête (less common; normally mal de tête without article)
As part of fixed expressions:
- avoir mal (à …) = to have pain
- faire mal à quelqu’un = to hurt someone
- se faire mal = to hurt oneself
You don’t change mal for gender or number here; it always stays mal.
Correct: Ils se sont fait mal. (no s on fait)
Explanation (intermediate grammar point):
- In compound tenses of reflexive verbs, the auxiliary is être, and the past participle sometimes agrees with the subject.
- But with se faire mal, se is an indirect object (they are doing harm to themselves), so the past participle does not agree.
So:
- Ils se sont fait mal. ✅
- Ils se sont faits mal. ❌ (wrong)
Compare:
- Ils se sont lavés.
Here se is a direct object (they washed themselves), so lavés agrees with ils.
Your sentence is in the present, so it’s just:
- Ils se font mal. = They hurt themselves / are hurting themselves.
You can say ils se blessent, but it changes the nuance:
ils se font mal
- They’re hurting themselves, maybe repeatedly, but not necessarily seriously.
- Typical for kids bumping into furniture, falling, etc.
ils se blessent
- Sounds more like they’re actually injuring themselves—cuts, bruises, sprains, etc.
- A bit more serious or factual.
So:
Les enfants courent dans la maison et ils se font mal.
= They’re running around and ending up hurting themselves (classic everyday mishaps).Les enfants courent dans la maison et ils se blessent.
= They’re running around and ending up with real injuries (more serious tone).