Même si elle pleurait, sa mère a réussi à la calmer sans se fâcher.

Même si means even if or even though. It introduces a contrast:

• Même si elle pleurait... = Even though she was crying...

In everyday French, même si is very common when you want to say that one fact did not stop another fact from happening.

A useful thing to remember is that même si is normally followed by the indicative, not the subjunctive.

Pleurait is the imparfait of pleurer. It is used here because the crying is presented as an ongoing background situation.

• elle pleurait = she was crying / she used to be crying in that moment

By contrast, a réussi is in the passé composé, which presents a completed event:

• sa mère a réussi = her mother managed / succeeded

So the sentence combines:

• background action or state → imparfait: elle pleurait
• main completed event → passé composé: sa mère a réussi

This is a very common French pattern.

Because mère is a feminine singular noun, the possessive adjective must be sa.

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

So:

• sa mère = her mother / his mother
• son père = her father / his father

Here, sa mère could theoretically mean her mother or his mother, depending on context. Since the meaning is already known to the learner, we understand it here as her mother.

The structure is:

• réussir à + infinitive

It means to manage to do something or to succeed in doing something.

So:

• a réussi à la calmer = managed to calm her down

Other examples:

• Il a réussi à partir tôt. = He managed to leave early.
• Nous avons réussi à finir. = We managed to finish.

This is a very common verb pattern, so it is worth memorizing as a chunk: réussir à + infinitive.

In French, object pronouns usually come before the verb they belong to.

Here, la is a direct object pronoun meaning her. It replaces a feminine person already understood from context.

So instead of saying:

• calmer Marie or calmer la petite fille

French uses:

• la calmer = calm her

With an infinitive, the object pronoun still comes before the infinitive:

• a réussi à la calmer

Not:

• a réussi à calmer la

That last form is not correct.

La refers to the female person mentioned earlier as elle.

So in this sentence:

• elle pleurait = she was crying
• sa mère a réussi à la calmer = her mother managed to calm her

The pronoun changes because the girl is:

• the subject in elle pleurait
• the direct object in la calmer

That is why French uses elle in one place and la in the other.

Sans means without, and after sans, French normally uses an infinitive if the subject stays the same.

So:

• sans se fâcher = without getting angry

This is very natural French.

The subject of a réussi is sa mère, and the person who does se fâcher is also sa mère, so the infinitive works perfectly.

Compare:

• Elle est partie sans parler. = She left without speaking.
• Il a répondu sans hésiter. = He answered without hesitating.

Se fâcher is a reflexive verb meaning to get angry.

• se fâcher = to become angry / to get angry
• fâcher quelqu’un = to anger someone

So the meanings are different:

• sa mère s’est fâchée = her mother got angry
• sa mère a fâché quelqu’un = her mother angered someone

In the sentence, the idea is that the mother stayed calm herself, so French uses the reflexive form:

• sans se fâcher = without getting angry

Because calmer and fâcher are infinitives here.

• à la calmer
• sans se fâcher

French infinitives do not agree for gender or number. Agreement happens with some past participles and adjectives, but not with infinitives.

So even though la refers to a female person, the verb stays:

• calmer, not calmée

And:

• se fâcher, not se fâchée

It is very natural and helpful here, because the sentence begins with a subordinate clause:

• Même si elle pleurait, ...

The comma separates that introductory clause from the main clause:

• sa mère a réussi à la calmer sans se fâcher

In modern French, punctuation can sometimes be a little flexible, but this comma is standard and makes the sentence much easier to read.

Not in exactly the same way.

Bien que also means something like although, but it is followed by the subjunctive, not the indicative.

For example:

• Bien qu’elle pleure / pleurât...

But the sentence you have uses même si, which is often simpler and more common in everyday speech.

So for this sentence, même si elle pleurait is completely natural and straightforward.

It has three main parts:

1. Même si elle pleurait
   a subordinate clause giving the difficult situation

2. sa mère a réussi à la calmer
   the main action

3. sans se fâcher
   an added phrase explaining how the mother did it

So the pattern is:

Even though X was happening, Y managed to do Z without doing W.

That makes it a very useful model sentence for learning how French combines:

• contrast
• past tenses
• object pronouns
• infinitives
• reflexive verbs