Dès qu’elle entend le tonnerre, ma nièce tremble un peu et vient près de moi.

Dès que means as soon as. It suggests an immediate reaction: the moment she hears thunder, she starts trembling and comes close.

Quand also means when, but it is more neutral. In this sentence, dès que is a better choice because it highlights how quickly her reaction happens.

French usually shortens que before a vowel sound. This is called elision.

So:

• que elle becomes qu’elle
• que il becomes qu’il

It is the normal and required spelling here.

Entendre means to hear: to perceive a sound.

Écouter means to listen: to actively pay attention to a sound.

Thunder is something she notices with her ears, not something she intentionally listens to, so entend is the natural verb.

French often uses the definite article where English does not. Natural phenomena and general concepts very often take le, la, or les.

So le tonnerre means thunder in a general sense. This is completely normal French.

The sentence describes a habitual or general situation: whenever this happens, she reacts this way.

French uses the present tense for this kind of repeated action, just as English can:

• As soon as she hears thunder, my niece trembles a little and comes near me.

If you were talking about one specific past event, you would use past tenses instead.

The sentence begins with a time trigger: Dès qu’elle entend le tonnerre. After that, the main clause gives the result: ma nièce tremble un peu et vient près de moi.

This word order is very natural in French. It puts emphasis first on when the reaction happens. You could also say:

Ma nièce tremble un peu et vient près de moi dès qu’elle entend le tonnerre.

That version is also correct, but it sounds slightly less focused on the trigger.

Un peu means a little or a bit.

Here it modifies tremble, so tremble un peu means trembles a little. In French, short adverbial expressions like this often come after the verb, so this placement is very natural.

French uses venir when movement is toward the speaker or toward the place where the speaker is.

Since she comes close to me, the speaker says vient. If the movement were away from the speaker or toward somewhere else, aller might be used instead.

Près de moi means near me or close to me. It suggests that she comes and stays close, probably for comfort.

Other options are different:

• vers moi = toward me; it focuses more on direction
• à moi does not work here for physical movement
• auprès de moi is possible, but a bit more formal or literary

So vient près de moi is a very natural everyday choice.

Nièce is pronounced roughly like nyess.

A more exact pronunciation is /njɛs/.

A few helpful points:

• the ni sounds like ny
• è gives an eh sound
• the final ce sounds like s

So: ma nièce ≈ ma nyess

Yes, a few:

• Dès: the final s is normally silent here
• qu’elle: pronounce it smoothly as one unit
• entend: the ending -d is silent
• tonnerre: the final -e is silent, and the rr has the French r

A rough pronunciation of the first part is:

dèh kel ahn-tahn luh toh-nehr

That is only approximate, but it can help you get started.