Breakdown of Tu n'étais plus un adolescent rebelle.
être
to be
un
a / an (masculine)
tu
you (informal singular)
ne... plus
(not) anymore / no longer
Questions & Answers about Tu n'étais plus un adolescent rebelle.
Why does this sentence use étais instead of following the usual rule for the imperfect tense?
To form the imperfect tense, you normally take the nous form of a verb in the present tense and drop the -ons to find the stem. However, être (to be) is the one and only exception to this rule! It uses the irregular stem ét-. We then add the regular tu ending (-ais) to get étais (you were).
How does the negative phrase n'étais plus work?
The structure ne ... plus means 'no longer' or 'not anymore'. It works exactly like ne ... pas by wrapping like a sandwich around the conjugated verb. Because étais starts with a vowel, the ne drops its vowel to become n', giving us n'étais plus.
Why is rebelle placed after adolescent?
In French, most descriptive adjectives are placed after the noun they describe. A small group of common adjectives (usually describing beauty, age, goodness, or size) go before the noun. Because rebelle (rebellious) is a regular descriptive adjective, it goes after the noun.
If the teenager were a girl, would rebelle need an extra -e at the end?