Breakdown of Le fiancé de Marie est nerveux, mais leurs fiançailles rendent toute la famille heureuse.
Questions & Answers about Le fiancé de Marie est nerveux, mais leurs fiançailles rendent toute la famille heureuse.
Why is it fiancé and not fiancée?
What is the difference between fiancé and fiançailles?
Why is it nerveux and not nerveuse?
Why does French say le fiancé de Marie instead of Marie's fiancé?
Why is it leurs fiançailles and not leur fiançailles or ses fiançailles?
There are two important points here:
- Fiançailles is plural, so the possessive must also be plural: leurs
- The engagement belongs to both people, not just one person
In French, possessive adjectives agree with the thing possessed, not with the number of owners.
So:
- leur mariage = their wedding/marriage
- leurs fiançailles = their engagement
Ses fiançailles would mean his/her engagement, referring to just one person as the possessor.
Why is fiançailles plural when English says engagement?
Why is the verb rendent plural?
Why is it heureuse and not heureux?
Because heureuse describes toute la famille, not fiançailles.
In the structure rendre + object + adjective, the adjective agrees with the object that is being made something:
- rendre Marie heureuse = make Marie happy
- rendre les parents heureux = make the parents happy
Here, the sentence says:
- leurs fiançailles rendent toute la famille heureuse
So the people being made happy are toute la famille.
La famille is a feminine singular noun, so the adjective must be heureuse.
What does toute la famille mean, and why is it toute?
Toute la famille means the whole family or the entire family.
Toute is the feminine singular form of tout, and it agrees with la famille, which is feminine singular:
- tout le monde = everyone
- tout le jour = the whole day
- toute la famille = the whole family
- toutes les personnes = all the people
So toute is used because famille is singular and feminine.
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