Ma mère remercie le serrurier, puis elle garde une autre clé dans son sac.

In French, a possessive like ma usually replaces the article. So:

• ma mère = my mother
• not la ma mère

French does this just like English does: we say my mother, not the my mother.

Because mère is a feminine singular noun, and the possessive adjective agrees with the noun being possessed.

So:

• mon père = my father
• ma mère = my mother

A useful reminder: in French, possessives agree with the thing owned, not with the owner.

Remercie means thanks or is thanking.

It comes from the verb remercier, which means to thank.

So:

• Ma mère remercie le serrurier = My mother thanks the locksmith

French often uses the simple present where English might say either thanks or is thanking, depending on context.

Le serrurier means the locksmith, so it refers to a specific locksmith.

Compare:

• un serrurier = a locksmith
• le serrurier = the locksmith

In this sentence, the speaker is talking about a particular locksmith, not just any locksmith.

Serrurier means locksmith.

It is related to serrure, which means lock. So this is a useful word family:

• serrure = lock
• serrurier = locksmith

The ending -ier is common in job names.

Puis means then, next, or after that.

It links the two actions:

1. Ma mère remercie le serrurier
2. puis elle garde une autre clé dans son sac

So the sentence means that one action happens, and then the next one follows.

French normally needs an explicit subject pronoun with each conjugated verb.

So even though ma mère is already mentioned, French still says:

• Ma mère remercie le serrurier, puis elle garde...

English can sometimes sound natural without repeating the subject in similar structures, but French usually repeats it.

Garde comes from garder, which often means:

• to keep
• to leave
• to store
• sometimes to watch over

Here, elle garde une autre clé dans son sac means she keeps another key in her bag.

So garder here has the idea of keeping something with you or stored somewhere.

Because autre usually comes before the noun in French.

So:

• une autre clé = another key

That is the normal word order.

You will often see:

• un autre livre = another book
• une autre idée = another idea

The accent in clé is an acute accent: é.

It helps show the pronunciation, which is roughly like clay without the final glide being too strong.

You may also sometimes see clef instead of clé. Both mean key, but clé is very common in modern French.

This is a very common question. In French, son / sa / ses agree with the thing possessed, not with the owner.

The noun sac is masculine, so French uses son:

• son sac = her bag

Even though the owner is female, the possessive matches sac, which is masculine.

Compare:

• son sac = his/her bag
• sa clé = his/her key

Because:

• sac is masculine
• clé is feminine

Yes. Son, sa, and ses can mean either his or her.

They do not tell you the gender of the owner. They only tell you the gender and number of the thing possessed.

Examples:

• son livre = his book / her book
• sa voiture = his car / her car
• ses clés = his keys / her keys

Context tells you whose thing it is.

Dans means in or inside.

So:

• dans son sac = in her bag

It suggests the key is physically inside the bag.

They are in the present tense.

More specifically:

• remercie = remercier conjugated with elle / il / on
• garde = garder conjugated with elle / il / on

So:

• elle remercie = she thanks / she is thanking
• elle garde = she keeps / she is keeping

French present tense often covers both the simple present and the present continuous from English.

A few helpful points:

• mère sounds roughly like mehr
• remercie has a soft c sound before i, so it sounds like reh-mehr-see
• serrurier is pronounced roughly seh-rü-ree-ay
• clé sounds like clay
• the final -e in garde, mère, une, and autre is usually not strongly pronounced in normal speech

Also, many final consonants in French are silent, but not all. Pronunciation is something worth checking with audio when learning new words like serrurier.

Yes. The French present tense can often be translated in more than one natural way in English.

So elle garde une autre clé dans son sac could mean:

• She keeps another key in her bag
• She is keeping another key in her bag

The best English translation depends on context.