Speaking Advanced French - The Most Important Sentence Form in French

When learning a language, it is important to concentrate on the things you are most likely to hear, see and use. In French there is one simple two-word combination that is so common that you are guaranteed to hear it often in any conversation. It is based on:

ce + être it + to be

The most common form by far is: c'est 'it is'. The negative form is ce n'est pas or, in the spoken language, c'est pas. The much less common plural form is ce sont and ce ne sont pas. Other forms are c'était 'it was', ç'a été 'it has been' and ce sera 'it will'. Many readers will probably know the expression, C'est la vie 'Such is life'.

Looking at the banal translation 'it is', one could hardly imagine that this two-word contraction is such an important structure. This is because the French construction is used much more often than the equivalent translation in English. Let's look at some usages:

1. C'est + adjective

You can take any adjective and tack it on to c'est. Here is what some combinations would look like:

C'est bon 'It's good'

-- petit 'It's small"

-- délicieux 'It'sdelicious'

-- beau 'It's beautiful'

Notice how the masculine form of the adjective is always used with c'est.

These short phrases are very frequently used in conversations. C'est bon for example is very often used in the sense of O.K.

2. C'est + pronoun

C'est moi 'It's me / I'

-- toi 'It's you'

-- eux or Ce sont eux 'It's them / they'

-- quoi? 'What is it?'

Qui est-ce? 'Who is it?

3. C'est + noun

-- la vie 'It's life'

-- le soleil 'It's the sun'

-- le soir 'It's in the evening'

4. C'est + demonstratives

C'est ça 'This is it'

-- ceci 'It's this one'

-- bien ça 'That is correct'

5. C'est + proper noun

C'est Paris

-- Montréal

-- Pierre

6. C'est + past participle

C'est parti 'It has left'

-- terminé 'It's over'

-- mort 'It's dead'

-- fait 'It's done'

7. Ça y est

This an idiom that usually means 'it's over', 'at last' or 'that's it'. Here are two examples:

Ça y est! J'ai acheté la voiture. 'It's done. I bought the car.'

Ça y est! J'ai compris. 'That's it, I understood.'

8. All of the above forms can be modified with adverbs such as in:

C'était très bon 'It was very good'

Ce sera vite fait 'It will be done quickly'

C'est très bien dit 'It's well said'

9. The above forms are pretty straightforward and have many parallels in English. French does, however, have a special construction that does not occur in English. Instead of saying Le roi est moi 'The king is me", French adds emphasis with Le roi, c'est moi. This example would probably be best translated by 'I'm the king'. Here are some common examples:

La loi, c'est la loi. 'The law is the law.'

Le lait, c'est bon pour la santé. 'Milk is good for health.'

L'argent, c'est très utile. 'Money is useful.'

Le problème, ce n'est pas moi, c'est toi. 'The problem is not me, it's you.'

Trouver du travail, c'est pas facile. 'Finding work is not easy.'

Trois heures d'attente dans le froid, ce n'était pas drôle. 'Three hours waiting in the cold wasn't funny.'

Un parti politique, c'est des milliers de personnes. 'A political party is made up of thousands of people.'

10. Finally, there is a common construction with c'est + que 'it is that', as in:

C'est qu'il faut le voir pour le croire. 'It has to be seen to be believed.'

Le problème, c'est que je ne suis par certain. 'The problem is that I'm not certain.'

Stanley St-Yves Aleong believes that the best way to move from intermediate to advanced fluency in French or Spanish is to work with many carefully selected authentic examples. To learn more about a wall-chart learning tool based on this principle, visit Advanced French/Spanish