Learn French: Je cache une surprise, c'est un cadeau pour lui. - I am hiding a surprise, it is a gift for him.

Je cache une surprise, c'est un cadeau pour lui.

I am hiding a surprise, it is a gift for him.

Breakdown of Je cache une surprise, c'est un cadeau pour lui.

être

to be

it / this (with être)

pour

for

Questions & Answers about Je cache une surprise, c'est un cadeau pour lui.

How would I ask 'What are you hiding?' based on this lesson's focus on putting question words at the end?

To ask 'What are you hiding?' in everyday spoken French, you keep the regular sentence order and put the question word at the end: Tu caches quoi ? Here, quoi means 'what'.

The translation says 'I am hiding'. Can Je cache also mean 'I hide'?

Yes! French doesn't have a separate tense for actions happening right now (the English '-ing' form). The present tense Je cache translates to both 'I hide' and 'I am hiding' depending on the situation.

Why do we say pour lui (for him) instead of pour il?

When a pronoun comes right after a preposition like pour (for), avec (with), or de (from/of), you must use a 'stressed pronoun'. The stressed pronoun for 'him' is lui. You only use il when 'he' is the subject doing the action, like in Il cache (He is hiding).

Why does the sentence use c'est for 'it is' instead of il est?

In French, when 'it is' is followed by a noun that has an article in front of it (like un, une, or le), you generally must use c'est. Since cadeau has the article un right before it, we use c'est un cadeau.