The most important verb in French is être (to be). If you want to speak French fluently, this is the verb you have to know inside out. Much of the usage of this verb is quite straightforward because it resembles usage of 'to be' in English. But there are some pitfalls that you want to avoid because it is easy to make terrible mistakes by transposing English usages into French.
Resemblances with 'to be'
Just like it's English counterpart, être is the key verb for describing things, assigning attributes and locating things in space, as in:
Je suis satisfait. (I'm satisfied)
Tu es heureuse. (You are happy)
Suzie est une belle femme. (Suzie is a pretty woman)
Pierre et moi sommes contents. (Pierre and I are content)
Vous êtes riches. (You are rich)
Elles sont à Paris cette semaine. (They are in Paris this week)
When using être, pay particular attention to gender and number agreement.
Pitfall # 1
When speaking of occupations or roles, you can leave out the un or une, as in:
Je suis avocat instead of Je suis un avocat. (I am a lawyer)
Maryse est musicienne. (Maryse is a musician)
Elle est comedienne. (She is an actress)
Pitfall # 2
Certain adjectives are used with 'to be' in English but not so in French.
J'ai 20 ans. (I'm 20 years old)
Avez-vous faim? (Are you hungry?)
Non, merci, mais j'ai soif. (No, thank you, but I'm thirsty)
J'ai sommeil. (I'm sleepy)
Elle a froid. (She's cold)
Nous avons eu chaud. (We were warm)
Il fait 10 degrés en ville. (It's 10 degrees in the city)
Ils ont raison. (They are right)
A common mistake is Je suis fini instead of J'ai terminé for 'I'm finished'.
Pitfall # 3
When introducing oneself, use the verb s'appeler instead of être.
Instead of Bonjour, je suis Jennifer, say
Bonjour, je m'appelle Jennifer. (Hello, my name is Jennifer)
Pitfall # 4
English uses extensively 'there is' and 'there are' as in:
There is an accident at the corner.
There are many reasons for not going.
French uses Il y a instead, as in:
Il y a beaucoup à faire. (There's much to be done)
Il y a trop de voitures. (There are too many cars)
Pitfall # 5
One of the reasons être is so common is that is used as an auxiliary verb to create the past tense of a small number (about 14) of very common verbs. All the other verbs use avoir. Here are some examples:
Je suis né en 1990. (I was born in 1990)
Nous sommes partis tôt ce matin. (We left early this morning)
Elle est allée à l'école. (She went to school)
Vous êtes arrivés trop tard. (You've arrived too late)
La neige est tombée hier. (The snow fell yesterday)
Ils sont sortis tout de suite. (They came out right away)
Elle est décédée vers 15 h. (She passed away around 3 pm)
Merci d'être venu. (Thank you for coming)
A very common mistake here is to use avoir instead of être. Forms such as j'ai tombé and elle a parti are very wrong although sometimes heard.
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
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