Learn French: Salut ! Tu es étudiant ou professeur ? - Hi! Are you a student or a teacher?

Salut ! Tu es étudiant ou professeur ?

Hi! Are you a student or a teacher?

Breakdown of Salut ! Tu es étudiant ou professeur ?

être

to be

you (informal singular)

Questions & Answers about Salut ! Tu es étudiant ou professeur ?

Why does this sentence use tu es instead of vous êtes?

The pronoun tu is the informal "you" used for one person. We know this is an informal situation because the speaker starts with Salut ! (an informal "Hi!"). If they were speaking formally to a stranger or an elder, they would likely say Bonjour ! Vous êtes... instead.

Why isn't there a word for "a" before étudiant or professeur?

In French, when you state someone's profession or status directly after the verb être (to be), you drop the article (un or une). While in English we say "You are a student," in French you simply say Tu es étudiant.

How would this sentence change if I were asking a woman?

You would need to use the feminine forms of the nouns. Étudiant gets an -e added to the end to become étudiante, and professeur becomes professeure. The new sentence would be: Salut ! Tu es étudiante ou professeure ?

Do native speakers ever shorten tu es?

Yes! In casual, spoken French, you will often hear people shorten tu es to t'es. Since this sentence is already informal (Salut !), it is very likely a native speaker would pronounce this out loud as T'es étudiant ou professeur ?.