Learn French: C'est une belle actrice. - She is a beautiful actress.

In French, when you describe a person using an article (like une) plus a noun, you must use C'est. If you were only using an adjective with no article, you would use Elle est, but because we say une belle actrice, it has to be C'est.

How does the word actrice relate to the masculine form?

For a male, the word is acteur. In French, nouns and adjectives ending in -teur for the masculine almost always change to -trice for the feminine. Since the sentence is about a woman, we use the -trice ending.

Why is belle placed before actrice? Don't French adjectives usually go after the noun?

Most adjectives do go after the noun, but belle is part of a special group of short, common adjectives that go before the noun. You might remember these from earlier lessons using the acronym BANGS (Beauty, Age, Number, Goodness, Size). Belle describes beauty, so it comes before the noun!

Is belle also an irregular adjective?

Yes! Belle is the irregular feminine form of the masculine adjective beau. Because actrice is a feminine noun, the adjective describing her must match and be in its feminine form.