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Whiplash
April 17th, 2010, 08:45 pm
Alright, so, I'm learning French with Rosetta Stone, and well, Rosetta Stone is pretty lacking in the grammar teaching part of it. So, HERE IS MY QUESTION.

How come they used "C'est" for "C'est un élève."? According to what I learned, it's describing a person and his occupation, so why isn't it "Il est élève."?
http://i432.photobucket.com/albums/qq43/GeckosGoMoo/GrammarQuestion.jpg


I googled the different situations for when to use C'est or Il/Elle est, and I learned that:
Il/Elle est is used for: Unmodified nouns and adverbs (He is a teacher), and when describing a person or his occupation (he is a strong man.)
C'est is used for: modified nouns and adverbs (He is a good teacher), and when describing a situation (That sound was eerie).

(I used http://french.about.com/library/weekly/aa032500.htm for my research. Did I learn all this correctly? I haven't reviewed the page since yesterday, so I'm just spitting out what I think I remember.)

Mushyrulez
April 18th, 2010, 02:23 am
I have no idea about this, but the webpage looks reliable enough; I think that'd be the most comprehensive source of when to use both...

Gekkeiju
April 18th, 2010, 07:35 am
Oh, forget everything i told you last night, i realised what it was when i woke up in the middle of the night.

All the 'il est' words are adjectives.
the 'c'est' and 'ce' words are nouns


>_>