Module 1 of 10
Être, and the six people it belongs to
One irregular verb that carries most of what you say about yourself.
Être is the verb to be, and it is irregular in every language that has it. Do not try to derive the six forms from anything — learn them as six separate words, the way you learned Bonjour. Je suis, tu es, il est, elle est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont, elles sont. Say them in that order until the order itself does the remembering for you. Every sentence in the next three modules is one of these six forms with something attached to it.
Two things trip up a Hindi or Punjabi speaker here, and both are about what French refuses to leave out. The pronoun is never dropped: you cannot say suis étudiant the way you can drop the subject in Hindi — it is always je suis. And the choice between tu and vous is made freshly in every conversation, not once; if you opened with vous, stay there until the other person moves first. Getting this wrong is not a grammar mistake, it is a social one, which is why it is worth more attention than the conjugation.
Played by your device’s own French voice. It is a synthetic voice, not a recording of a teacher — close enough to learn the shape of a word, not close enough to copy exactly.
- Je suisI am
- Tu esYou are — one person, someone your own age or a friend
- Il estHe is, or it is
- Elle estShe is, or it is
- Nous sommesWe are
- Vous êtesYou are — a stranger, an older person, or more than one person
- Ils sontThey are — all men, or a mixed group
- Elles sontThey are — all women
Learn the six forms as six words, not as a pattern. The pronoun never disappears, and the tu/vous choice is social, not grammatical.