French feminine VERBS?
I use Learning With Texts to read and use Word Reference as my dictionary on there.

I read about sports often, and this line came straight from a newspaper:

Mais que s'est-il exactement passé ce jeudi, du côté du Cohbam Training Center, où sont établies les infrastructures de Chelsea ?

When i click on the word 'établies' i'm being told by Word References dictionary that it's the 'un participe passé (féminin pluriel)'.

Verbs don't have gender so what is all this about? I'm confused.

Thanks in advance.

Question

French feminine VERBS?
I use Learning With Texts to read and use Word Reference as my dictionary on there.

I read about sports often, and this line came straight from a newspaper:

Mais que s'est-il exactement passé ce jeudi, du côté du Cohbam Training Center, où sont établies les infrastructures de Chelsea ?

When i click on the word 'établies' i'm being told by Word References dictionary that it's the 'un participe passé (féminin pluriel)'.

Verbs don't have gender so what is all this about? I'm confused.

Thanks in advance.

Answer

Bonjour Phil,

Le participe passé s'accorde en genre et en nombre avec l'auxiliaire être.

Dans votre phrase, ce sont les infrastructures qui sont établies.

Infrastructures est féminin et au pluriel dans ce cas, donc établie +e +s.

J'espère vous avoir aidé, je me tiens à votre disposition pour d'autres précisions.

Bonne journée,

Answer

Well, when a verb becomes a participle, you can use it as an adjective. In this example, the participle follows the rule for feminine adjectives: "elles sont établies". Remember that "l'infrastructure" is a feminine noun in French.

The masculine plural form is "ils sont établis".

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