Learn French: Vous êtes un collègue ? Enchanté ! - Are you a colleague? Nice to meet you!

Vous êtes un collègue ? Enchanté !

Are you a colleague? Nice to meet you!

Breakdown of Vous êtes un collègue ? Enchanté !

Questions & Answers about Vous êtes un collègue ? Enchanté !

Why is it Vous êtes if the sentence translates to "Are you"? Shouldn't the words be swapped?

In conversational French, you can turn a regular statement into a question simply by raising the pitch of your voice at the end, just like saying "You are a colleague?" in English. You don't always have to flip the verb and pronoun (like Êtes-vous... ?) or add Est-ce que.

How do we know if Vous means one person or multiple people here?

The clue is the word un (a). Because it says un collègue (a colleague) instead of des collègues (colleagues), we know the speaker is talking to just one person. Here, vous is being used as the formal, polite "you" for a single person.

The word collègue ends in an 'e'. Doesn't that mean it should be feminine (une collègue)?

Not always! While many French words ending in 'e' are feminine, collègue can be either masculine or feminine depending on the person you are talking about. Because the speaker uses the masculine word un, we know they are talking to a male colleague. If it were a female colleague, it would be une collègue.

Does Enchanté change if the person speaking is a woman?