écoutant

Écoutant is the present participle of écouter, the French verb meaning “to listen.” As a participle, it conveys the action of listening and is used in participial phrases or, more rarely, as a descriptive adjective. The base form is écoutant; it agrees in gender and number with the noun when used adjectivally: écoutante (f. sg), écoutants (m. pl), écoutantes (f. pl).

In usage, écoutant typically introduces a concurrent action or describes a manner in which something is done. Examples include: Écoutant les conseils du médecin, il prit sa décision. Tout en écoutant la radio, elle préparait le dîner. When expressing “while listening,” the gerundial sense is often rendered with en écoutant, as in: en écoutant attentivement les explications.

Grammatically, écoutant is the form used for the present participle and can function to modify a subject or to join clauses in a participial phrase. It does not itself form a tense; rather, it relates another action to the main verb. The verb écouter itself comes from Old French escouter and ultimately from Latin auscultare, reflecting the long-standing concept of listening or hearing attentively.

See also: écouter, auscultation, present participle. The term is primarily found in formal or literary French, where participial constructions are more common. In everyday prose, speakers often replace it with simple subordinate clauses or with en + present participle constructions for emphasis.