Breakdown of Après le sport, mon épaule droite et mon genou gauche sont un peu gonflés.
Questions & Answers about Après le sport, mon épaule droite et mon genou gauche sont un peu gonflés.
Why is it mon épaule and not ma épaule?
Why are droite and gauche placed after the nouns?
In French, many adjectives come after the noun, and words like droit/droite and gauche usually do when they describe body sides.
So:
- l’épaule droite = the right shoulder
- le genou gauche = the left knee
This is normal French word order. English often puts these words before the noun, but French usually puts them after.
Why is it droite but gauche stays the same?
Because adjectives must agree with the noun they describe.
- épaule is feminine singular, so droit becomes droite
- genou is masculine singular, so gauche stays in its basic form
Some adjectives change visibly for feminine forms, and some do not.
Examples:
- droit → droite
- petit → petite
- but gauche → gauche in both masculine and feminine singular
Why is mon repeated before both body parts?
Why is the verb sont and not est?
Why does gonflés end in -és?
Because gonflés agrees with the full subject: mon épaule droite et mon genou gauche.
This subject is:
- plural, because there are two body parts
- mixed gender, because épaule is feminine and genou is masculine
In French, when adjectives describe a mixed group, the agreement is normally masculine plural.
So:
- singular masculine: gonflé
- singular feminine: gonflée
- plural masculine (or mixed): gonflés
- plural feminine: gonflées
That is why the sentence uses gonflés.
Why is it un peu gonflés? What does un peu do here?
Why is it Après le sport and not Après du sport?
Après le sport means after sport / after exercising / after sports activity in a general sense.
French often uses le + noun to talk about an activity in a general way:
- j’aime le sport
- après le sport
Du sport would more naturally appear in expressions like:
- faire du sport = to do sport / to exercise
So:
- faire du sport
- but après le sport
Both involve sport, but the article changes depending on the structure.
Is sport here talking about one specific sport or exercise in general?
Why does French use possessive adjectives with body parts here? I thought French often used definite articles for body parts.
French does often use definite articles with body parts, especially in constructions like:
- J’ai mal à l’épaule.
- Je me suis blessé le genou.
But in this sentence, the speaker is simply identifying which body parts are swollen, so using mon is completely natural:
- mon épaule droite
- mon genou gauche
This makes the ownership explicit and sounds very normal in this kind of descriptive statement.
Could gonflés also be translated as puffy or swollen?
Yes. Gonflé literally suggests something that is swollen, puffed up, or inflated. In a body-related context, swollen is usually the best choice.
Depending on context, it can suggest:
- swollen
- puffy
- a bit inflamed-looking
Here, with a shoulder and a knee after sport, swollen is the most natural interpretation.
How would this sentence sound if only the shoulder were swollen?
Is there anything tricky about pronunciation in this sentence?
- Après: the final s is normally silent
- épaule: starts with a vowel sound, which is why you get mon épaule
- genou: the g is soft, like the j in measure
- sont un peu may involve smooth linking in natural speech, though the main thing is just to keep the flow natural
- gonflés: the final s is silent
So even though several words have written final consonants, many of them are not pronounced.
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