L’expert commence l’expertise.

to start

Breakdown of L’expert commence l’expertise.

• l’expertise: the expert assessment
• l’expert: the insurance assessor

Questions & Answers about L’expert commence l’expertise.

Why is there l’ before both expert and expertise?

Because both nouns are being used with the definite article le or la, and before a vowel sound French normally shortens the article to l’.

• le expert becomes l’expert
• la expertise becomes l’expertise

This is called elision. It happens to avoid a clash of vowel sounds.

Even though the written form is the same, the gender is different here:

• l’expert = masculine singular
• l’expertise = feminine singular

What do the apostrophes mean in L’expert and l’expertise?

The apostrophe shows that a vowel has been dropped.

• le
  • expert → l’expert
• la
  • expertise → l’expertise

So the apostrophe is not showing possession, as it often does in English. In French, here it simply marks the missing vowel from the article.

Why is commence translated as begins or starts?