Plus nous avançons, plus je comprends le texte.

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Breakdown of Plus nous avançons, plus je comprends le texte.

• nous: we
• comprendre: to understand
• le texte: the text

Questions & Answers about Plus nous avançons, plus je comprends le texte.

What does Plus nous avançons, plus je comprends le texte mean grammatically?

It uses a very common French pattern: plus ..., plus ...

This pattern means the more ..., the more ... in English.

So the sentence is built like this:

• Plus nous avançons = The more we move forward / the further we go
• plus je comprends le texte = the more I understand the text

It is a comparative correlative structure: one thing increases, and another thing increases too.

Why is plus used twice?

Because French mirrors the English pattern the more ..., the more ...

The first plus introduces the first changing situation:

• Plus nous avançons = The more we progress

The second plus introduces the linked result:

• plus je comprends le texte = the more I understand the text

So both plus words are necessary in this structure.

Why doesn’t plus mean more in the usual comparison sense here, like more than?

Here, plus is not being used in a simple comparison such as more than X. Instead, it is part of the fixed pattern plus ..., plus ...