Comme la perceuse fait trop de bruit, Marie préfère percer le bois demain matin.

As the drill makes too much noise, Marie prefers to drill the wood tomorrow morning.

Breakdown of Comme la perceuse fait trop de bruit, Marie préfère percer le bois demain matin.

• Marie: Marie
• le matin: the morning
• demain: tomorrow
• de: of

Questions & Answers about Comme la perceuse fait trop de bruit, Marie préfère percer le bois demain matin.

Why does comme mean since/as here instead of like or how?

In this sentence, comme is being used as a conjunction at the beginning of the sentence, where it often means since, as, or because.

So:

• Comme la perceuse fait trop de bruit...
  = Since/As the drill makes too much noise...

This is a very common use of comme when giving a reason, especially when the reason comes first.

Compare:

• Comme il pleut, on reste à la maison.
  = Since it's raining, we're staying home.

But comme can also mean other things in other contexts:

• comme toi = like you
• comment = how (not comme)

So here, the position of comme at the start helps signal that it means since/as.

Why is it la perceuse and not just perceuse?