Quand le chaton a peur, je lui parle doucement.

Because French uses the expression avoir peur, literally to have fear, where English uses to be afraid.

So:

• Le chaton a peur = the kitten is afraid
• not Le chaton est peur ❌

This is a very common pattern in French: French often uses avoir where English uses to be.

Examples:

• avoir faim = to be hungry
• avoir soif = to be thirsty
• avoir chaud = to be hot

In French, articles like le, la, les, un, une are used much more often than in English. A noun usually needs an article unless there is some other determiner.

So French says:

• le chaton = the kitten

Even when English might say something more general, French often still uses an article. Here, le chaton refers to the kitten being talked about in the situation.

Because the verb parler is constructed with à when you say who you are speaking to:

• parler à quelqu’un = to speak to someone

So:

• Je parle au chaton = I speak to the kitten

When you replace au chaton with a pronoun, French uses the indirect object pronoun lui:

• Je lui parle = I speak to him/her/it

So lui here means to him / to her / to it, not him/her/it as a direct object.

Because parler does not take a direct object for the person spoken to. It takes an indirect object:

• parler à quelqu’un

That means:

• je lui parle ✅
• je le parle ❌

Compare:

• Je le vois = I see him/it (voir takes a direct object)
• Je lui parle = I speak to him/it (parler takes an indirect object)

In French, object pronouns usually go before the conjugated verb.

So:

• Je parle au chaton → full noun
• Je lui parle → pronoun version

This word order is normal in French:

• Je le vois
• Je lui donne un jouet
• Je leur parle

English puts the object pronoun after the verb more often, so this can feel unusual at first.

Doucement is an adverb. It tells you how the action is done: softly, gently, quietly.

It comes from the adjective doux / douce and the adverb ending -ment:

• doux = soft, gentle
• doucement = softly, gently

So:

• je parle doucement = I speak softly / gently

French often forms adverbs this way:

• lent → lentement
• rapide → rapidement
• heureux → heureusement

Because many adverbs in French are placed after the verb, especially when they describe how an action is done.

So:

• Je lui parle doucement = I speak to it softly

That is the most natural order here. English can also put softly after the verb, so this part is fairly similar.

It can mean a general habit, a repeated action, or something that happens whenever that situation occurs.

Here, Quand le chaton a peur, je lui parle doucement most naturally means:

• whenever the kitten is afraid, I speak to it softly

French present tense often covers ideas that English might express with the simple present:

• Quand il pleut, je reste à la maison.
• Quand le chaton a peur, je lui parle doucement.

So this sentence sounds like a general pattern, not necessarily only one single moment.

Because the sentence begins with a subordinate clause introduced by quand:

• Quand le chaton a peur = when the kitten is afraid
• je lui parle doucement = I speak to it softly

When this kind of time clause comes first, French often separates it from the main clause with a comma, just as English often does.

If the order were reversed, the comma would usually disappear:

• Je lui parle doucement quand le chaton a peur.

Yes, grammatically you could say:

• Lorsque le chaton a peur, je lui parle doucement.

Both quand and lorsque can mean when.

The difference is mainly tone and style:

• quand is very common and natural in everyday speech
• lorsque sounds a bit more formal or literary

So quand is the most ordinary choice here.

Not with exactly the same meaning.

• Quand le chaton a peur = when / whenever the kitten is afraid
• Si le chaton a peur = if the kitten is afraid

Quand suggests that this happens and describes what you do in that situation. Si makes it more conditional or hypothetical.

So here quand is the better choice if you mean a usual reaction.

Because chaton is a masculine noun in French, so it takes le:

• le chaton

Grammatical gender in French does not always match natural sex. A kitten could be male or female in real life, but the noun chaton is still grammatically masculine.

If you specifically wanted to refer to a female cat, you would use chatte, but chaton means kitten and remains masculine as a noun.

A careful approximation is:

kahn luh sha-tohn ah puhr, zhuh lwee parl doos-mahn

A few useful pronunciation notes:

• quand: the d is silent
• chaton: ch sounds like sh
• on in chaton is a nasal sound
• peur has a vowel that does not exist exactly in English; it is roughly like puhrr but without a strong English r
• je sounds like zhuh
• lui sounds like lwee
• doucement ends with a nasal -ment, not a clearly pronounced t

If you want, the rhythm of the sentence is quite smooth: Quand le chaton a peur / je lui parle doucement.