Il, elle, ils, elles = it, he, she, they

Yes, "c'est très bon" is perfectly OK but it  is a more general statement. "Il est très bon" refers to a specific subject.

Have you read this lesson yet? https://french.kwiziq.com/revision/grammar/when-to-use-cest-or-il-est-elle-est-to-say-it-is

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Hi Jane,

Could you give some context to your query as  'il est très bon' is often used incorrectly for 'c'est très bon'?

Well, in french you can't tell what the pronoun "il" refers to: it could either be the film or marc. So both translations are -- barring any contextual information on top -- indistinguishable in French.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Yes I do understand that it is grammatically correct but it just felt so wrong to mark it that way. ;-)

Yes, I know what you are saying. Just think of a situation where a kid is to watch a boring educational film and he does so voluntarily. He is such a good boy! ;)

-- Chris.

Of course, I never thought of it that way!
Merci,

Thanks for the good answer Chris! I had the same issue as G on this question.

"Ils brûlent tout" translates to "They burn everything".This is one of the few cases where you can literally translate every word and get the right answer. Not many of those around ;)

I am not sure why you would want to stick "sont" into the sentence. What exactly did you want to say?

-- Chris.

Thanks Claus, I agree with you and understand your explanation but the quiz question was to translate “They’re burning everything” hence I put sont in there for “are”, which was marked as being wrong.

When you conjugate a verb in the present tense, it already means "is / are -ing." For example, "Ils parlent" may be translated as "They are speaking," or "they speak."

Bonjour Kev,
There is a lesson here that addresses this topic exactly; however, I am unable to locate it but basically is says that in French unlike in English there is not a separate conjugation to say I am speaking, like in Megan's examples above. «Il parle» translates to «He speaks» OR «He is speaking». Claus gave a great example about the phrase in question by stating that there are not many times when the phrase in French can be translated word-for-word to English. I had a French instructor and her favorite phrase to the class when we attempted to translate was this:
French is not simply English translated to French. There are too many syntax variables between the two for that to occur. Learning French is a totally different way of thinking about language.

Thanks for your help everyone. I’m getting my head around it slowly ;-)

This explains it in a bit more detail. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/french/french-ii/french-ii-participles/present-participles

Actually, the lesson from cliff notes is a totally different grammar point, what in English is known as a gerund, the -ing form of a verb when it is not functioning as a verb, i.e. He eats while talking ---> Il mange en parlant. So, one can see that these are two entirely different grammar structures.
Here is the lesson that discusses le gerondif:
https://french.kwiziq.com/my-languages/french/view/4552?rts=%252Fsearch%253Fs%253Ding

Bonjour Mieke,
«Jeanne eats from the ice cream». This seems to be an incomplete sentence so I will take a little «poetic» license here and change the phrase to «Jeanne eats from the ice cream cone» This then becomes, in French: Jeanne mange du cône de crème glacée or
Jeanne eats from the ice cream carton (she just bought from the store and did not place some in a bowl) ---> Jeanne mange de la boîte de crème glacée
However, in English we might say: Jeanne is eating an ice cream cone ---> Jeanne mange un cornet de crème glacée.
J'espère que ma réponse vous aidera.
Bonne chance

Bonjour Susan !

No, as here it is not a general statement but rather a specific statement on that specific flower, hence "elle".
Moreover, "c'est jolie" is incorrect as "c'est" is also followed by the masculine form of the adjective. It would be "c'est joli".

See also:
https://french.kwiziq.com/my-languages/french/view/3006

I hope that's helpful!
À bientôt !

Bonjour Aurélie,
Merci. Yes, helpful.
À bientôt,
s.

Bonjour Lea,

Lunettes is just like "eyeglasses" in English - they are both plural. The "s" at the end usually means that the word is plural, but there are exceptions.

There are many words like this in both languages. Sometimes they're both plural and sometimes the noun is plural in one language but not the other, such as les épinards = "spinach." This is just something you need to learn along with the new words.

https://www.french-test.com/revision/grammar/how-some-plural-nouns-in-english-are-singular-in-french-and-vice-versa

Please pardon my mistake. I made a big error. What I meant to ask was, how can I know that this plural word, lunettes, is feminine? The question called for knowing this.
Thank you for your explanation though.
Lea

Dear Lea,

You can hardly ever 'guess' the gender of a word unfortunately... however, in that case, you can remember that ALL words ending in '-ette' are feminine in French, so here you are.
For other gender tips, have a look at this lesson:
https://www.french-test.com/revision/grammar/how-to-identify-gender-by-some-word-endings

I hope it's helpful!