Il est - Elle est - C'est

Il est, elle est and c’est will come up quickly in your French-learning journey. They’re used for introducing, showing, defining, describing… in a word, opening sentences. Sadly, they sometimes also are the cause of lasting confusion and frustration – maybe because when you’re a brand-new speaker, it can feel a bit like a game of shifumi. No time to think. 1-2-3, say something now. NOW. Well, now is the time to take control.

Warning: I will use a few grammatical terms along the way. I know some of the older generation (to which I belong) may not have been exposed to grammar terminology at school, at least in the UK – whereas it was our bread and butter at school in France in the 70s. At the time it felt like hard work, but grammar does help clarify the role words play in a sentence and how they interact with each other.

Don’t take it personally…

Il and elle are the singular forms of personal pronouns when they are subjects in a sentence. Let’s look at the following example:

“Paul is American. He’s on holiday in France. He first stayed in Paris, then he went to…..”

“Paul est américain. Il est en vacances en France. D’abord, il a séjourné à Paris, puis il est allé à…”

Instead of repeating Paul all the time, once everyone is aware of who Paul is, you will naturally switch to he in English – il in French. Hence he/she or il/elle are called personal pronouns because they stand for people (persons).

…Except that in French, il and elle also stand for things, animals, thoughts… anything you can name under the sun and beyond, while the English would resort to a different pronoun, namely it.

Finally, in our example, il is the subject of the sentence, i.e. giving flesh to the verb which either describes an action (“a séjourné”, “est allé”) or a state (“est”).

Feeling demonstrative?

Now it can get tricky for English speakers because the personal pronoun it in English will sometimes correspond to the French il or elle, but it will sometimes correspond to c’est sentences in French, which are, among others, used to introduce and show things (grammar term: demonstrative).

Let’s imagine someone from a holiday rental agency is showing Paul (remember? The American guy from the above example) the place where he is going to stay. They’re both standing in front of the house. The agent could say something along the lines of “C’est la maison ! Elle est grande.”

In this case, “c’est” could be replaced by “voici”, and it would probably be supplemented by a gesture of the hand showing the house:

“C’est la maison ! Elle est grande.”
                A                         B

Looking more closely at A and B:

1.   In sentence B, La maison, which is a feminine noun, is replaced by the feminine personal pronoun elle. In English, the house would be replaced by it because it is the personal pronoun for what is not human.

2.   In sentence A, the speaker is showing the house (“c’est”), whereas in sentence B, the speaker is describing the house (“elle est”). In other words, sentence A would answer the question “Qu’est-ce que c’est ?” (“What is it?”) whereas sentence B would answer the question “Comment elle est?” (“What is it like?”)

3.   And finally, note the difference in the sentence constructions: in A, c’est is followed by 2 words –la + maison – whereas in B, elle est is directly followed by one word only – grande.

Practice makes perfect

Here are a few more examples:

·   C’est mon ami. Il est x australien.

·   C’est la mère de Sidonie. Elle est x boulangère[1].

·   C’est un parking. Il est x gratuit.

·   C’est le chien de ma voisine. Il est x gentil.

·   C’est une table en bois. Elle est x solide.

In English, the last sentence would read: “It’s a wooden table. It’s robust.”  The first “it” would be used to show the table, i.e. it would have a demonstrative function, but not the second one.  

To get the hang of it, why not take five minutes now and again, doing a voice-over of your life in French: “C’est ma cuisine. Elle est grande et claire. C’est un pain aux noix. Il est très bon. Etc.”

After all, practice makes perfect… C’est la vie! 😊

[1] Watch out! In English, it would be She is a baker.

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just call me at (+33) 6 01 73 07 20 or send an e-mail at nerry.malo@gmail.com