Le brocanteur vend dix-huit objets.

Le is the masculine singular definite article in French, meaning the.

So Le brocanteur means the second-hand dealer / the antique dealer / the flea-market seller, depending on context.

French usually requires an article where English sometimes does too, so Le brocanteur is the normal way to say the dealer.

A brocanteur is a person who buys and sells old or used items, often things like furniture, decorations, small antiques, or miscellaneous second-hand goods.

It comes from brocante, which refers to second-hand goods or a kind of flea-market/antiques trade.

So a brocanteur is not just any seller; it has the specific idea of someone dealing in old or used objects.

Brocanteur is the masculine form. Brocanteuse would be the feminine form.

Because the sentence uses Le, the noun is masculine here:

• Le brocanteur = the male dealer
• La brocanteuse = the female dealer

French nouns referring to people often change form depending on gender.

Vend is the third-person singular present tense form of the verb vendre, meaning to sell.

So:

• je vends = I sell
• tu vends = you sell
• il vend / elle vend = he sells / she sells

In this sentence, the subject is Le brocanteur, which is singular, so French uses vend.

It can mean either, depending on context.

French present tense often covers both:

• he sells
• he is selling

So Le brocanteur vend dix-huit objets could mean:

• The dealer sells eighteen objects
  or
• The dealer is selling eighteen objects

Usually the broader context tells you which is more natural.

French numbers like dix-huit are normally written with a hyphen.

Dix-huit means eighteen:

• dix = ten
• huit = eight

The hyphen is standard spelling here.

It is usually pronounced roughly like dee-zweet.

A more careful approximation is:

• dix here sounds like diz
• huit sounds somewhat like weet, but with a French u sound that does not exist exactly in English

So dix-huit is approximately dee-zweet.

Because dix-huit objets is just how French says eighteen objects.

After a number, French usually puts the noun directly:

• trois livres = three books
• sept chaises = seven chairs
• dix-huit objets = eighteen objects

You do not normally add des here.
So dix-huit objets is correct, not dix-huit des objets.

Because it is plural.

Since dix-huit means more than one, the noun must be plural:

• un objet = one object
• deux objets = two objects
• dix-huit objets = eighteen objects

In writing, the plural is shown with -s, although that final s is usually not pronounced.

The word order is very similar to English:

Le brocanteur → subject
vend → verb
dix-huit objets → direct object

So it follows a basic Subject + Verb + Object pattern:

• Le brocanteur = the dealer
• vend = sells
• dix-huit objets = eighteen objects

That makes this sentence quite straightforward for English speakers.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation is:

luh broh-kahn-tur vahn dee-zweet ob-zhay

A few notes:

• Le sounds more like luh than lee
• brocanteur has a French r, not an English one
• vend ends with a nasal sound; the d is not strongly pronounced
• objets ends roughly like zhay

This is only an approximation, but it can help you get started.

No. French objets is pronounced very differently from English objects.

It sounds roughly like ob-zhay:

• the j sound is like the s in measure
• the final -ets is not pronounced like English -ects

So even though the words are related, the pronunciation is quite different.