Learn French: Il est possible qu'ils soient confiants, mais tu ne l'es pas. - It is possible that they are confident, but you are not.

Il est possible qu'ils soient confiants, mais tu ne l'es pas.

It is possible that they are confident, but you are not.

Breakdown of Il est possible qu'ils soient confiants, mais tu ne l'es pas.

être

to be

you (informal singular)

mais

but

ils

they (masculine/mixed)

Questions & Answers about Il est possible qu'ils soient confiants, mais tu ne l'es pas.

Why is there an l' in tu ne l'es pas?

The l' is the neuter pronoun le. In French, you cannot usually end a sentence with just the verb être the way we do in English ("you are not"). You must use le to stand in for the adjective mentioned earlier, which in this case is confiant (confident).

Since confiants is plural, shouldn't we use les instead of l'?

No, it must remain the invariable neuter pronoun le (elided to l' here). When replacing an adjective or a general state of being, the pronoun never agrees in gender or number. It is always just le.

Why do we use soient instead of sont here?

soient is the subjunctive form of être. The phrase Il est possible que expresses a possibility or uncertainty, which triggers the subjunctive mood in the following clause.

What is the word order rule for the negation around l'es?

In a negative sentence with an object pronoun, ne comes directly before the pronoun, and pas follows the conjugated verb. This gives us the strict order of ne + l' (pronoun) + es (verb) + pas.