The verb être: je suis, tu es, il est

Être: the verb everything is built on

Être means “to be”, and like in every language it is irregular: its six forms look nothing like the infinitive. You already met je suis and vous êtes in the last unit; here is the whole set. Three things to hear: es and est sound exactly the same (a short open è, the final letters are silent), sont ends in the nasal on with no t heard, and in vous êtes the s of vous links to the vowel and is pronounced z: vou-zêtes. The pronoun is never dropped – suis alone is not a sentence, je suis is.

– Vous êtes de Lyon ? – Non, nous sommes de Marseille.– Are you from Lyon? – No, we are from Marseille.

Je suis médecin: professions without an article

After être, a profession comes bare, with no article: je suis médecin, elle est journaliste – where English says “a doctor”. The noun still agrees with the person. Some professions have a separate feminine: vendeur / vendeuse, cuisinier / cuisinière, ingénieur / ingénieure. Others keep one form for both, and only the pronoun tells you who it is: il est médecin, elle est médecin; journaliste already ends in -e and does not change. In the plural the noun takes -s as the verb changes: nous sommes journalistes, ils sont vendeurs.

C’est, ce sont: pointing at someone or something

To introduce or identify a person or a thing, French uses c’est – literally “it is” – followed by a name, or by a noun WITH its article: c’est Paul, c’est un ami, c’est la voiture de Léa. For several people or things the verb goes plural: ce sont Paul et Marie, ce sont des amis. Notice the contrast: il est médecin describes what someone is (bare noun), c’est un médecin identifies who it is (article). C’est also answers “who is it?” at the door or on the phone: C’est moi !

C’est Nadia, elle est ingénieure. Et ce sont Marc et Léo, ils sont vendeurs.This is Nadia, she is an engineer. And these are Marc and Léo, they are shop assistants.

Ne… pas: the negation wraps the verb – and ici, là

The negation has two parts that wrap around the verb: ne before it, pas after it: je ne suis pas médecin, nous ne sommes pas ici. Before a vowel ne shrinks to n’: il n’est pas là, vous n’êtes pas français. In relaxed speech French people often swallow the ne (je suis pas), but in writing and in this course both pieces stay. Two little place words go naturally with être: ici (here, where the speaker is) and là (there – but in everyday speech also “here, present”: Paul est là ? asks whether Paul is in).