Le fiancé de Marie est nerveux, mais leurs fiançailles rendent toute la famille heureuse.

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How does grammatical gender work in French?
Every French noun is either masculine or feminine, and this affects the articles and adjectives used with it. "Le" is used with masculine nouns and "la" with feminine ones. Adjectives also change form to match — for example, "petit" (masc.) becomes "petite" (fem.).

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Questions & Answers about Le fiancé de Marie est nerveux, mais leurs fiançailles rendent toute la famille heureuse.

Why is it fiancé and not fiancée?

Fiancé is the masculine form, used for an engaged man.
Fiancée is the feminine form, used for an engaged woman.

So Le fiancé de Marie means Marie's fiancé. If the sentence were talking about Marie as the engaged person, you might see Marie est fiancée.

What is the difference between fiancé and fiançailles?

They are related words, but they do different jobs:

  • un fiancé = an engaged man
  • une fiancée = an engaged woman
  • les fiançailles = the engagement

So in this sentence:

  • Le fiancé de Marie = the person
  • leurs fiançailles = the engagement itself
Why is it nerveux and not nerveuse?

Because nerveux agrees with le fiancé, which is masculine singular.

French adjectives usually agree in gender and number with the noun they describe:

  • un homme nerveux
  • une femme nerveuse

Here, the person being described is Marie's male fiancé, so nerveux is correct.

Why does French say le fiancé de Marie instead of Marie's fiancé?

French usually expresses this kind of relationship with de:

  • le fiancé de Marie = Marie's fiancé
  • literally: the fiancé of Marie

This is a very normal French structure. You could also say son fiancé if the context already makes it clear that son means her.

Why is it leurs fiançailles and not leur fiançailles or ses fiançailles?

There are two important points here:

  1. Fiançailles is plural, so the possessive must also be plural: leurs
  2. 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?

Because French normally uses the plural form: les fiançailles.

This is just how the language works. Even though English uses the singular word engagement, French usually says fiançailles in the plural.

So leurs fiançailles is best translated as their engagement, not their engagements.

Why is the verb rendent plural?

Because the subject is leurs fiançailles, and fiançailles is plural.

The verb rendre here means to make in the pattern:

rendre quelqu'un heureux = to make someone happy

Since the subject is plural, French uses the third-person plural form:

  • les fiançailles rendent
  • not les fiançailles rend
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.