Le cours montre à quel point l’étouffement est grave.

Le cours can mean several related things in French: course, class, or lesson, depending on context.

In this sentence, it most naturally means something like the course, the class, or the lesson material—whatever is doing the explaining or demonstrating.

So Le cours montre... means:

• The course shows...
• The lesson shows...
• The class demonstrates...

French often uses cours where English might choose different words depending on the setting.

À quel point means how much, to what extent, or just how.

In this sentence, montre à quel point l’étouffement est grave means:

• shows how serious choking is
• shows just how serious choking is
• shows the extent to which choking is serious

It is a very common French expression for emphasizing degree.

A useful pattern is:

montrer à quel point + clause

Examples:

• Cela montre à quel point c’est important. = That shows how important it is.
• Tu ne sais pas à quel point je suis fatigué. = You don’t know how tired I am.

Because étouffement begins with a vowel sound, le becomes l’ before it.

So:

• le + étouffement becomes l’étouffement

This is called elision. French does this very often with le, la, je, me, te, se, de, and ne before a vowel or mute h.

Examples:

• le ami → l’ami
• la école → l’école
• je ai → j’ai

So l’étouffement still means the choking or the suffocation.

Étouffement can mean choking, suffocation, or smothering, depending on context.

In a first-aid or health-related context, it often means choking.
In other contexts, it could refer more broadly to suffocation.

It comes from the verb étouffer, which can mean:

• to choke
• to suffocate
• to smother

So the noun étouffement is the condition or event of choking/suffocation.

Here, grave means serious or severe.

So l’étouffement est grave means:

• choking is serious
• choking is severe

English also has grave meaning serious, but in everyday English we more often say serious. French uses grave very naturally in this sense.

So this is not about a grave in the cemetery sense. It is the adjective grave = serious/severe.

There actually is a verb already: montre.

The structure is:

• Le cours montre = The course shows
• à quel point l’étouffement est grave = how serious choking is

So the whole sentence works like:

The course shows [how serious choking is].

French uses à quel point to introduce the idea of degree, and then the clause continues normally with l’étouffement est grave.

Because French keeps normal statement word order inside this clause:

subject + verb + adjective

• l’étouffement = subject
• est = verb
• grave = adjective

So: l’étouffement est grave = choking is serious

Even though English sometimes changes word order in expressions like how serious choking is, French does not invert it here. After à quel point, French usually keeps standard clause order.

Yes, grave does agree with l’étouffement, but in this case the form happens to stay the same.

Étouffement is masculine singular, and grave in the masculine singular is grave.

The feminine singular is also grave, so you do not see a difference there.
Only the plural forms show a visible change:

• masculine singular: grave
• feminine singular: grave
• masculine plural: graves
• feminine plural: graves

So the agreement is there grammatically, but it is not very visible.

Yes, that is grammatically correct, but the meaning is slightly less emphatic.

• Le cours montre que l’étouffement est grave = The course shows that choking is serious
• Le cours montre à quel point l’étouffement est grave = The course shows how serious choking is

The version with à quel point stresses the degree more strongly. It sounds more like the course really highlights the seriousness.

Not usually. A word-for-word translation can help you see the structure, but the natural English translation is usually:

• how
• how much
• to what extent
• just how

So in real English, you would usually not say shows to what point choking is serious.
You would say shows how serious choking is.

This is a good example of something you should understand structurally in French, but translate naturally in English.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

Le cours montre à quel point l’étouffement est grave.
≈ luh koor mon-tr ah kel pwan lay-too-fuh-ma(n) ay grav

A few notes:

• cours sounds like koor
• montre has a nasal-style on sound: mon-tr
• à quel point is roughly ah kel pwan
• l’étouffement begins with the l’ attached directly to étouffement
• grave rhymes roughly with English brave, but with a French r

If you want to sound more natural, pay attention to the flow:

• montre à
• point l’étouffement
• est grave

French is usually smoother and more connected than English word by word.