il
part of speech
pronoun (French «il»; Italian «il» is an article) — not an English word
meaning for a pupil
1) (French) «Il» means «he» or «it» in French: «il mange» is «he eats». tree →
2) (French) In some phrases it means «it» with no real person: «il pleut» is «it is raining». tree →
3) (Italian) In Italian «il» means «the», as in «il gelato» (the ice cream). tree →
4) It is not an English word; to an English ear French «il» sounds like «eel». tree →
sense in the lessons
In French lessons «il» (he/it) is learnt with «elle» (she/it), «ils» (they, masculine) and «elles» (they, feminine). Common phrases: «il y a» (there is, there are), «il fait beau» (the weather is nice), «s'il vous plaît» (please). In English you might see «il» in Italian food and place names, such as «Il Duomo» or a restaurant called «Il Forno».
examples
- Interested readers can check the 1562 Mantua edition for themselves through the digital archives of the National Library of Israel: nli.org.il/he/books/NNLALEPH990012793690205171/NLI. (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation) tree →
- In French, «il est grand» means «he is tall». tree →
- «Il pleut» means «it is raining». tree →
- «S'il vous plaît» means «please». tree →
- «Il y a un chat» means «there is a cat». tree →
- French «il» sounds like the English word «eel». tree →
- The Italian restaurant on our street is called «Il Forno». tree →
- In French, a thing that is masculine is also called «il». tree →
note
French or Italian, not English. Do not read «il» as «ill» (sick). In French the «l» is said; in «ils» (they) the «s» is silent, so «il» and «ils» sound the same. Do not confuse it with the prefix «il-» in English words like «illegal» and «illogical», where it means «not».
In the corpora
- Prefixes meaning «not» include un-, in-, im-, il- and ir-.
- Il neige means "It's snowing"; la neige is snow and un bonhomme de neige is a snowman.
- Il fait un temps de chien ! means the weather is awful; Il pleut des cordes ! means it's pouring.
- beau means beautiful or handsome, but il fait beau simply means the weather is sunny and nice.
- Adjectives agree even after est: il est petit, elle est petite.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «il» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.