#ember2659

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

cyan stumpBOT
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Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

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Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

sacred flicker
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"c'est" includes the pronoun "ce" which acts as subject, similar to "it" in English (or "this", "that", etc)
"est" is only the verb component

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that said, what might be confusing you is the difference in usage due to subject repetition in French

nimble rampart
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if I understood correctly, If I were to use an adjective to describe the noun, I would most-likely use "est" then

sacred flicker
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can you give an example sentence?

nimble rampart
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"L'herbe est toujours plus verte chez le voisin"

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Is an example that comes up to mind, or "Le voiture est bleu"?

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Or am I just hearing c'est but its said so fast I don't hear the c?

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Oh I just thought of an example "Il est beaucoup intelligent"

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I feel that example is slightly off

sacred flicker
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so there are multiple things to dissect here

nimble rampart
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it's been 2 years and I still don't know how they work 🤣

sacred flicker
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as you might know, each sentence needs a subject component and a verb component

nimble rampart
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yes

sacred flicker
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subjects can be nouns, describing with a pretty precise word what you're talking about (Marie, la voiture, l'herbe...) or pronouns, generic tools used by the language to reference stuff (ce, il, elle...)

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if you wanted to shorten "La voiture est bleue", you could say "Elle est bleue" as "elle" is the appropriate pronoun for "la voiture" (singular feminine)
"Paul est intelligent" could become "Il est intelligent"

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They mean the same thing. But one is less precise and requires the other person to know who/what you're talking about.

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In English these examples could be translated as:
the car is blue => it is blue
paul is smart => he is smart

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In French, it is extremely common to stick to pronouns for your core sentence. If you want to indicate what noun you're referencing, you can affix that noun at the beginning or at the end of the sentence.
la voiture est bleue => la voiture, elle est bleue (lit. "the car, it is blue")
paul est intelligent => il est intelligent paul (lit. "he is smart, paul")

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the English literal translations for those last ones sound off, and that's because the two languages parse things differently. But that's a very common construction in French

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"c'est" acts exactly the same way, but instead of referencing a specific noun, you're referencing a situation, a place, or something abstract
"le français est difficile" could thus also be said "le français, c'est difficile"
that doesn't mean "est" and "c'est" are the same. Grammatically, the two sentences work differently ("French is hard" vs "French, it's hard")

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@nimble rampart

nimble rampart
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I get it now

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Merci Flynn

sacred flicker
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-# nice staraptor pfp btw

nimble rampart
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so from what i'm seeing, i've been using them right for a while without even noticing lmao

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In spanish we have similar things

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Staraptor is my favorite pokemon

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Well favorite bird, Corviknight second fav

sacred flicker
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goated birds

sacred flicker
nimble rampart
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I think me immersing myself in the french language has made me build some sort of intuition

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Yesterday I learned what "épicerie", "citron", "anti-citron" meant

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I deduced épicerie means store or market, citron apparently means a faulty car

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I mean I asked my friend from québec

sacred flicker
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yeah I had no idea it could mean that, probably idiomatic from qc