Learn French: Le café coûte cher, mais il sent bon. - The coffee is expensive, but it smells good.

Le café coûte cher, mais il sent bon.

The coffee is expensive, but it smells good.

Breakdown of Le café coûte cher, mais il sent bon.

Questions & Answers about Le café coûte cher, mais il sent bon.

Why are cher and bon used here instead of adverbs like chèrement or bien?

In French, certain verbs pair with specific adjectives that act as adverbs to describe the action. Coûter cher (to be expensive) and sentir bon (to smell good) are fixed expressions. Because they act as adverbs here, you don't use words like chèrement or bien.

Since le café is masculine singular, cher and bon are in their default forms anyway. What if the subject were feminine and plural?

They wouldn't change at all! Because cher and bon are modifying the verbs (coûter and sentir) rather than the noun, they are invariable. If you were talking about strawberries, it would be: Les fraises coûtent cher, mais elles sentent bon. They never take an -e or an -s in these expressions.

Is it ever correct to make cher agree with the noun when talking about price?

Yes, if you use a state verb like être instead of an action verb like coûter. If you say 'The cars are expensive,' you write Les voitures sont chères, because chères is a regular adjective describing the noun les voitures. But with coûter, cher acts as an adverb, so it stays invariable.