Être: to be Lesson 28 of the french course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: the lesson at school .
0 Être means "to be", and it is one of the busiest words in French: je suis (I am), tu es (you are), il est and elle est (he is, she is), nous sommes (we are), vous êtes (you are), ils sont and elles sont (they are). 2 Watch the sneaky pair tu es and il est: they sound exactly the same, "ay", but tu takes es and il or elle takes est with a t. 3 Picture running for the school bus with a French friend who shouts "On est en retard !" - we're late! 4 In talk, French people often use on for "we", with the same verb as il: on est. 5 Some things English says with "to be" use avoir in French: you have hunger, thirst and years, so "I am hungry" is j'ai faim and "I am nine" is j'ai neuf ans. 6 Être (to be): je suis, tu es, il est, elle est, on est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont, elles sont; it must be learned by heart. 7 Je suis une fille and je suis un garçon: être is followed by un or une matching the noun. 9 Tu es and il est sound the same ("ay") but are spelled differently: es with tu, est with il or elle. 10 After nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont and elles sont, the describing word is plural: nous sommes contents; if all are girls, contentes. 11 Ils sont means "they are"; the s of ils is silent before a consonant, so ils sont sounds like "eel SON". 12 In talk, on often means "we", and it takes the same verb as il: on est, on a, on joue. 14 C'est is ce plus est squashed together and means "it is" or "that is": C'est super ! 15 C'est mon frère. 16 Hunger, thirst, fear, heat and cold use avoir, not être: j'ai faim, j'ai soif, j'ai peur, j'ai chaud, j'ai froid. 17 Age uses avoir: j'ai neuf ans; "je suis neuf" would mean "I am new". ← previous Adjectives: after the noun, and agreeingnext → Avoir: to have↑ back to French This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/28-etre-to-be/