alexiwanagaphilippines

[distant garden]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

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[hearty heron]

« il arrive » is an impersonal expression meaning 'it happens'. « lui » is the indirect object pronoun « à lui/à elle (to him/her) ». « Que » is the interrogative pronoun meaning 'What'. So:
« Que lui arrive-t-il ? (What happens to him/her?) »

[sage sonnet]

Doesn’t il arrive mean he arrive

Or he is coming

[hearty heron]

It can be but not in this context

Because 'What he arrives to him/her' doesn't make sense

[sage sonnet]

So it’s an expression I just have to mémorise pretty much?

Right

Are you native

[hearty heron]

Nope

[sage sonnet]

So what niveau?

[hearty heron]

It'll be much better if you understand the logic

so if you see « pourquoi pleut-il ? » you don't get confused and ask who is raining

[hearty heron]

high B2/low C1 I think

[sage sonnet]

Right

How do u deal with expressions that don’t directly make sense?

Do u just mémorise

[hearty heron]

You accept that expressions are unique to their own languages

and move on

[sage sonnet]

Ok thank you

[hearty heron]

You should try to understand the logic but not relate it to any other language

You can try and remember the meaning and leave it at that

[sharp egret]

arriver can mean "to arrive", but it can also mean "to happen" (compare English "go on", "occur" etc.)

When used in that second sense, it is most often used with a dummy subject "il", though it can be used without it too: thus "something happened" can be said as:

• Quelque chose est arrivé
• Il est arrivé quelque chose (also correct and more commonly used)