This sentence is quite a nice one to look at; it’s easy to translate but it has lots of elements to it. Let’s look at each bit individually:

This bit is quite simple to translate, as long as you know what the words mean (that might sound like a silly thing to say, and you may be thinking, “If I know what the words mean, of course I’ll know what the sentence means.” But that isn’t always true. Sometimes, you can know word for word what a sentence means, but it can still sound like gobbledy goop. This is because sometimes, in French, the words aren’t in the same order as English, or there is a special French phrase that doesn’t make sense in English (this type of phrase is called an idiom)).

The “tu prends” part comes from the verb “prendre”, which means “to take”. “Tu prends” means “you take”, and “tu me prends” means “you take me”.

The word “quand” means “when”, and the phrase, “dans tes bras” means “in your arms” or “into your arms”.

The word “bras” can mean “arm” or “arms” (not “bras” as in the women’s undergarment, which is “soutien-gorge”). We can tell it means “arms” in the plural in this sentence, because of the word “tes”.

There are three words for “your” in French: a masculine “ton”, a feminine “ta”, and a plural “tes”. The one you use has to do with the object that comes after, and has nothing to do with the gender of the person. You use “ton” with masculine nouns, “ta” with feminine nouns, and “tes” with plural nouns. For example:

ton chien - your dog (“chien” is masculine)
ta maison - your house (“maison” is feminine)
tes enfants - your children (“enfants” is plural)

This phrase, again, is a simple one to translate. It means “when I look in your eyes”.

“Je regarde” comes from the verb “regarder” which means either “to watch” or “to look at”.

Again, we have the plural word for “your”: “tes”.

This is because “yeux” means “eyes” in the plural. The word “yeux” is a funny word in French; in the plural, it’s “yeux”, and in the singular, it’s “œil”, which is completely different.

This phrase means “I see that a God exists”.

The “je vois” part means, “I see”, and it comes from the verb “voir”, which means “to see”.

The little “qu’un” bit in the middle is the contracted form of “que + un”, which means “that a”. Then, “Dieu” means “God”, and “existe” means “exists”. It comes from the verb, “exister” meaning “to exist”.

So, another easy phrase to translate.

This phrase is a tiny bit trickier than the rest of them. It means “It isn’t hard to believe in him”.

Firstly, you have “ce n’est pas”, which means “it isn’t”.

Then, the adjective “dur” means “hard”. It can mean “hard” as in “difficult”, but it can also mean “hard” as in “not soft”.

It’s the next bit that might be a little tricky to understand. The verb “croire” means “to believe” and if you want to say “to believe in something”, you say “croire à quelque chose”. “Croire” is always followed by the little preposition “à” if you want to say “believe in”. For example:

Je crois à Papa Noël — I believe in Santa Claus

Well, in this phrase, “ce n’est pas dur d’y croire”, it means “it isn’t hard to believe in him”. So, where’s the “à”?

The “him” in this phrase means “God”, so the longer sentence would be, “Ce n’est pas dur de croire à Dieu”, which is “It isn’t hard to believe in God”. The word “à” doesn’t literally mean “in”; it tends to mean “to” instead, so what you’re literally saying is, “It isn’t hard to believe TO God”.

The little word “y” means various things. Firstly, it means “there”, and you place it in front of the verb. For example:

J’y vais - I’m going there

Secondly, “y” can mean “to it”, “to him” or “to her”. Since, when you say, “Ce n’est pas dur de croire à Dieu”, you’re actually saying, “It isn’t hard to believe TO God”, and if you want to say, “it isn’t hard to believe in him”, instead you will have to say, “it isn’t hard to believe TO him”. Hence, the phrase is “ce n’est pas dur d’y croire”.

Phew!

Lastly, the little “d’” is short for “de”. After the phrase, “ce n’est pas”, if you want to put a verb, you have to put “de” in front of the verb.

Anyway, it’s a nice song by the wonderful Shakira. Although, the rest of the song is in English, so not great for learning French. But the first sentence is good.