Breakdown of En hiver, mes lèvres deviennent sèches et je parle moins pendant les longues promenades.
Questions & Answers about En hiver, mes lèvres deviennent sèches et je parle moins pendant les longues promenades.
French usually uses en with seasons to mean in a general seasonal sense:
- en hiver = in winter
- en été = in summer
- en automne = in autumn/fall
The main common exception is au printemps = in spring.
Dans l'hiver is not the normal everyday way to say this. It can sound literary or refer to a more specific idea of being inside a particular winter period, but for normal statements like this, en hiver is the standard choice.
En hiver is an introductory time phrase, and the comma separates it from the main clause. It works a lot like English:
- In winter, my lips become dry...
The comma is natural and helps readability. In short French sentences, people sometimes leave out commas, but here it is completely normal to include one.
Both are possible in French, but mes lèvres is natural here because the sentence is simply describing my lips.
A useful rule for learners:
- French often uses the definite article with body parts when the action is clearly happening to your own body, especially with a reflexive construction:
- Je me lave les mains. = I wash my hands.
- But when there is no reflexive structure, a possessive adjective is often more straightforward:
- Mes lèvres deviennent sèches.
So mes lèvres is perfectly normal here.
Deviennent is the 3rd person plural present tense of devenir (to become).
The subject is mes lèvres, which is plural, so the verb must also be plural:
- ma lèvre devient = my lip becomes
- mes lèvres deviennent = my lips become
This is just normal subject-verb agreement.
Because sèches agrees with lèvres, and lèvres is feminine plural.
The adjective sec (dry) changes like this:
- masculine singular: sec
- feminine singular: sèche
- masculine plural: secs
- feminine plural: sèches
Since lèvre is feminine, and here it is plural, French uses sèches.
A little, yes. The masculine form is sec, but the feminine form changes more than just adding -e:
- sec → sèche
So this is not a completely regular spelling change. It is one of those adjective forms you simply learn as a pair:
- sec
- sèche
Both exist, but they do not mean exactly the same thing.
- je parle peu = I speak little / not very much
- je parle moins = I speak less
Moins is comparative. It implies less than usual or less than in another situation, even if the comparison is only understood from context.
In this sentence, the idea is that in winter, during long walks, the speaker talks less. That is why moins fits well.
If you wanted to state the comparison explicitly, you could say:
- je parle moins qu'en été = I speak less than in summer
Because moins is an adverb modifying the verb parle.
In French, adverbs like bien, mal, beaucoup, peu, moins, and plus often come after the conjugated verb:
- je parle beaucoup
- je parle peu
- je parle moins
So je parle moins is the normal word order.
Here pendant means during.
- pendant les longues promenades = during long walks / during the long walks
It introduces a stretch of time during which something happens.
That makes sense here because the speaker is talking less while those walks are happening.
Les longues promenades sounds like a general or familiar set of walks in the speaker's life or routine. It can be understood as:
- during long walks
- during the long walks
French often uses the definite article in a broad, habitual sense more than English does.
By contrast, de longues promenades is more indefinite and often means some long walks. That would fit better in a sentence like:
- Je fais de longues promenades en hiver. = I take long walks in winter.
So in your sentence, les longues promenades works well because it refers to the type of walks during which the speaker talks less.
Many French adjectives come after the noun, but some common adjectives often come before it. Long is very often placed before the noun when talking about duration or extent in a natural, everyday way:
- une longue journée
- une longue promenade
So les longues promenades is normal and idiomatic.
A careful pronunciation would be approximately:
En hiver, mes lèvres deviennent sèches et je parle moins pendant les longues promenades.
IPA: /ɑ̃ nivɛʁ, me lɛv dəvjɛn sɛʃ e ʒə paʁl mwɛ̃ pɑ̃dɑ̃ le lɔ̃ɡ pʁɔm(ə)nad/
A few helpful points:
- en hiver: the h in hiver is silent
- lèvres: the v is pronounced
- deviennent: sounds roughly like duh-vyen
- sèches: final -es is not pronounced separately
- moins: nasal sound, roughly mwẽ
- longues: the g is pronounced here, roughly long
- promenades: final -s is silent
Yes, but the meaning is slightly different.
- Mes lèvres sont sèches = my lips are dry
- Mes lèvres deviennent sèches = my lips become dry / are getting dry
So deviennent emphasizes a change of state. It suggests that in winter, the lips start to become dry, rather than simply describing their condition.