Les copropriétaires votent aujourd’hui.

Les is the plural definite article in French, so here it means the.

A few useful things to know:

• Les is used for both masculine and feminine plural nouns.
• Unlike English, French articles usually have to be included, so les copropriétaires is the normal way to say the co-owners.

Copropriétaires is the plural of copropriétaire.

It means co-owners or joint owners. In real-estate contexts, it often refers to people who jointly own part of a building or property.

It is built from:

• co- = co-
• propriétaire = owner

So literally, it is co-owner.

It can be either.

Copropriétaire is one of those nouns that has the same form for masculine and feminine:

• un copropriétaire = a male co-owner
• une copropriétaire = a female co-owner

In the plural, les copropriétaires could refer to:

• a group of men
• a group of women
• a mixed group

Only context tells you which.

Because the subject is plural: les copropriétaires = they.

French verbs change form depending on the subject. The verb here is voter = to vote.

Present tense:

• je vote
• tu votes
• il/elle vote
• nous votons
• vous votez
• ils/elles votent

Since les copropriétaires is third-person plural, French uses votent.

Usually, no.

In regular -er verbs like voter, the -ent ending of ils/elles in the present tense is normally silent.

So:

• il vote
• ils votent

are pronounced the same.

That is very common in French, so learners often have to rely on the subject word to know whether the verb is singular or plural.

Because the French present tense often covers both:

• vote
• are voting

So Les copropriétaires votent aujourd’hui can mean either:

• The co-owners vote today
• The co-owners are voting today

English often chooses between simple present and present progressive, but French usually just uses the present tense and lets context do the work.

If French really wants to stress that something is happening right now, it can use:

• être en train de

For example:

• Les copropriétaires sont en train de voter. = The co-owners are in the middle of voting / are voting right now.

Aujourd’hui means today.

The apostrophe is just part of the standard spelling of the word. For a learner, the easiest approach is to memorize aujourd’hui as one fixed word meaning today.

It is pronounced roughly like oh-zhoor-dwee in English approximation.

Yes.

You can say:

• Les copropriétaires votent aujourd’hui.
• Aujourd’hui, les copropriétaires votent.

Both are correct. Putting aujourd’hui first can give a little more emphasis to today.

This kind of movement is very common with time expressions in French.

A rough English-style pronunciation would be:

lay ko-pro-pree-ay-tehr voht oh-zhoor-dwee

A few pronunciation notes:

• les sounds like lay
• copropriétaires has a stressed-sounding -taires part, roughly -tehr
• votent sounds like vote, with the final -ent silent
• aujourd’hui ends with a sound like dwee

There is no special liaison between les and copropriétaires, because copropriétaires begins with a consonant.