Je veux connaître l’avis de Marie sur ce roman.

This is one of the most common questions English speakers have.

In French, savoir usually means to know a fact or to know how to do something:

• Je sais la réponse. = I know the answer.
• Je sais nager. = I know how to swim.

Connaître usually means to know / be familiar with a person, thing, subject, or piece of information in a more general sense.

In this sentence, connaître l’avis de Marie means to know what Marie’s opinion is. French often uses connaître with l’avis, la position, les détails, and similar nouns when you want to become acquainted with that information.

So Je veux connaître l’avis de Marie is natural French.

Because avis begins with a vowel sound, French uses elision:

• le + avis becomes l’avis

This happens very often:

• le ami becomes l’ami
• le hôtel becomes l’hôtel in spelling, although hôtel has a silent h

So l’avis is just the normal shortened form of le avis, which French does not keep.

French usually expresses possession with de, where English often uses ’s.

So:

• l’avis de Marie = Marie’s opinion
• literally: the opinion of Marie

This structure is extremely common in French:

• le livre de Paul = Paul’s book
• la voiture de ma sœur = my sister’s car

French does not normally add something directly onto the noun the way English does with ’s.

Here, sur means about or regarding.

So:

• l’avis de Marie sur ce roman = Marie’s opinion about this novel

French often uses sur after nouns like avis, opinion, idée, or after verbs when talking about a topic:

• un article sur la politique = an article about politics
• son opinion sur le film = his/her opinion about the movie

So sur ce roman tells you the subject of Marie’s opinion.

French demonstrative adjectives change form depending on the noun.

For masculine singular nouns:

• ce before a consonant
• cet before a vowel or silent h

Since roman begins with the consonant sound r, you use ce:

• ce roman
• ce livre
• ce film

But:

• cet homme
• cet article

So ce roman is correct because roman does not begin with a vowel sound.

Ce means this or that, depending on context. In many sentences, French does not make as strong a distinction between this and that as English does.

So ce roman could be understood as:

• this novel
• sometimes that novel, depending on the situation

If the speaker wants to be more explicit, French can add -ci or -là:

• ce roman-ci = this novel here
• ce roman-là = that novel there

But in normal speech, ce roman is very common on its own.

Because Marie is a proper name, and proper names in French usually do not take an article in this kind of sentence.

So you say:

• l’avis de Marie
• le livre de Paul
• la sœur de Sophie

You would not normally say de la Marie in standard French here.

A natural approximate pronunciation is:

zhuh vuh kon-netr la-vee duh ma-ree sur suh ro-man

A few helpful points:

• Je sounds like zhuh
• veux sounds roughly like vuh
• connaître is pronounced approximately kon-netr
• l’avis links smoothly: la-vee
• the final s in avis is silent
• ce sounds like suh
• in roman, the n is not fully pronounced as an English n; the vowel is nasal

If you want, you can think of the rhythm in groups:

• Je veux connaître
• l’avis de Marie
• sur ce roman

They are very close, but not always used in exactly the same way.

• avis often means opinion, view, or judgment
• opinion also exists in French and means opinion

In this sentence, avis is very natural and common. Saying l’opinion de Marie sur ce roman is possible, but l’avis de Marie sounds very idiomatic in everyday French.

So a learner should understand that both words can refer to an opinion, but avis is especially common in this kind of structure.

French speakers may understand it, but Je veux connaître l’avis de Marie sur ce roman is the more natural choice.

Why? Because connaître l’avis de quelqu’un is a common expression meaning to know someone’s opinion or to find out someone’s view.

With savoir, French more often says things like:

• Je veux savoir ce que Marie pense de ce roman. = I want to know what Marie thinks of this novel.

So both ideas are possible, but they are usually expressed differently:

• connaître l’avis de Marie
• savoir ce que Marie pense

French word order here is actually very regular:

• Je = subject
• veux = conjugated verb
• connaître = infinitive after veux
• l’avis de Marie = object
• sur ce roman = phrase explaining the topic

A useful pattern is:

Je veux + infinitive

For example:

• Je veux manger. = I want to eat.
• Je veux comprendre. = I want to understand.
• Je veux connaître son avis. = I want to know his/her opinion.

So once you know that vouloir is followed by an infinitive, the structure becomes much easier to recognize.