Questions & Answers about Ce sont des cahiers.
Why is the word des in the French sentence when the English just says "notebooks"?
In English, we can talk about plural things without an article (like "notebooks"). In French, nouns almost always need a little word in front of them. Des is the plural of un or une. It means "some," but we usually drop it in English translations. Do I pronounce the "s" at the end of cahiers?
No, the -s added to make regular nouns plural is completely silent in French. You will know the word is plural when listening because you will hear the plural word des right before it! Why does this sentence use Ce sont instead of C'est?
C'est means "it is" or "this is" and is used for singular nouns. Because we are pointing out multiple notebooks here, we must use the plural version Ce sont, which translates to "these are" or "those are." If the "s" is silent, how do I pronounce cahiers?
The singular word cahier ends in -er, which sounds like the "ay" in the English word "say." Since the plural -s is silent, both cahier and cahiers are pronounced exactly the same way: "ka-yay." Learn Ce sont des cahiers and more in French
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