Paul annonce son départ à sa famille avant le dîner.

Annonce is the 3rd person singular present indicative of annoncer.

So:

• j’annonce = I announce
• tu annonces = you announce
• il/elle annonce = he/she announces

In this sentence, the subject is Paul, so French uses annonce.

French often uses the present tense where English might also use the present, but depending on context it can sometimes sound like a planned or immediate action too.

Because French possessive adjectives agree with the thing possessed, not with the owner.

• départ is masculine singular, so you use son
• famille is feminine singular, so you use sa

Even though both belong to Paul, the forms change because of the nouns:

• son départ = his departure
• sa famille = his family

This is different from English, where his stays his no matter what noun follows.

Départ is a noun. It means departure, leaving, or the act of going away.

• partir = to leave
• le départ = the departure / the leaving

So:

• Paul part = Paul leaves
• Paul annonce son départ = Paul announces his departure

French often uses a noun like départ where English might use either a noun or a verb phrase.

Because annoncer commonly works like this:

annoncer quelque chose à quelqu’un = to announce something to someone

In this sentence:

• son départ = the thing being announced
• à sa famille = the person/people receiving the announcement

So the structure is:

• Paul annonce son départ à sa famille
  = Paul announces his departure to his family

In French, la famille is a singular collective noun. It refers to the family as one group.

So à sa famille literally uses a singular noun, even if it refers to multiple people in real life.

That is normal in both French and English:

• his family
• sa famille

If you wanted to talk about family members individually, French might use something else depending on context, but sa famille is completely natural here.

French usually uses an article where English often does not.

So English says:

• before dinner

But French normally says:

• avant le dîner

That is very standard. French likes to treat dîner here as a noun meaning the dinner meal, so it takes the definite article le.

They are close, but not identical.

• avant le dîner = before dinner / before the dinner meal
• avant de dîner = before having dinner / before eating dinner

So:

• avant le dîner focuses more on the time period relative to the meal
• avant de dîner focuses more on the action of eating

In your sentence, avant le dîner sounds very natural because it places the announcement in time: it happened before the meal.

No. Son can mean his, her, or sometimes its, depending on context.

French son / sa / ses do not tell you the gender of the owner. They tell you the gender and number of the noun that follows.

So:

• son départ could mean his departure or her departure
• here, because the subject is Paul, we understand it as his departure

Because the normal order with annoncer is:

subject + verb + direct object + indirect object

So:

• Paul = subject
• annonce = verb
• son départ = direct object
• à sa famille = indirect object

That is the most neutral, standard word order in French.

You may sometimes see other orders in special styles or with pronouns, but this sentence follows the normal pattern.

Yes. Since famille is grammatically singular, you would normally use lui.

So:

• Paul annonce son départ à sa famille.
• Paul lui annonce son départ.

Here lui means to his family.

That can feel a little strange to English speakers because family refers to several people, but grammatically la famille is singular, so lui is the expected pronoun.

Not always in every French-speaking region.

In standard modern French from France, dîner usually means dinner, the evening meal.

But regional usage can vary:

• in some places, especially historically or regionally, dîner can refer to a different meal
• for example, meal names are not identical everywhere in the French-speaking world

Still, for most learners, in a sentence like this, le dîner is best understood as dinner.

Yes. Avant le dîner tells you when he makes the announcement, not exactly when the departure itself happens.

So the sentence means that the announcement happens before dinner. It does not by itself tell you whether Paul leaves:

• that same evening
• the next day
• much later

The timing of the announcement is clear; the timing of the departure is not specified.