Ça dépend de la franchise.

Ça is an everyday, informal way to say cela.

In this sentence, ça means something like that or it, referring to the situation being discussed already.

So:

• Ça dépend... = That depends... / It depends...

In spoken French, ça is extremely common.

The mark under the c — ç — is called a cedilla.

It changes the sound of c before a, o, or u:

• ca would normally sound like ka
• ça sounds like sa

So the cedilla is there to make sure ça is pronounced correctly.

In French, the verb dépendre is built with de, not with a word that matches English on.

You have to learn it as a set phrase:

• dépendre de quelque chose = to depend on something
• dépendre de quelqu’un = to depend on someone

So even though English says depend on, French says dépendre de.

French usually uses an article more often than English does.

Here, franchise is a noun, and it appears with the definite article la:

• la franchise

Because dépendre takes de, you get:

• de + la franchise = de la franchise

So de la franchise is just of/from the franchise grammatically, even though in English the natural translation is on the franchise.

Because franchise is feminine singular.

French combinations work like this:

• de + le → du
• de + la → de la
• de + l’ → de l’
• de + les → des

Since the noun is la franchise, the sentence keeps de la.

Yes, franchise is a feminine noun, which is why it uses la:

• la franchise

You usually learn noun gender together with the article, so it is best to memorize it as:

• la franchise

That way you automatically remember that it is feminine.

Like in English, franchise can have more than one meaning depending on context.

Common meanings include:

• a business franchise
• a media franchise such as a film/game series
• frankness or openness

So the exact meaning of Ça dépend de la franchise depends on the context around it.

For example, it could mean:

• it depends on the business franchise
• it depends on the series/franchise
• it depends on the level of frankness

If your learning material already gives one meaning, that is the intended one for this sentence.

Yes.

• Ça dépend de la franchise = more natural in everyday speech
• Cela dépend de la franchise = a bit more formal or written

Both are correct. In conversation, most people would usually say ça.

A rough pronunciation is:

sa day-pahn duh la frahn-sheez

More accurately in IPA:

/sa de.pɑ̃ də la fʁɑ̃.ʃiz/

A few useful notes:

• ça sounds like sa
• the final -d in dépend is silent
• dépend has a nasal vowel, so the -an sound is not a full English an
• franchise ends with a z sound: -sheez