Ce livre est intéressant.

to be

Breakdown of Ce livre est intéressant.

• le livre: the book
• intéressant: interesting
• ce: this

Questions & Answers about Ce livre est intéressant.

Why does the sentence use Ce instead of Le or Un?

Ce is a demonstrative determiner in French, meaning this (or that). It points to a specific book in the speaker’s context. If you said Le livre est intéressant, you’d be saying The book is interesting in a general sense. If you said Un livre est intéressant, you’d be saying A book is interesting without specifying which book.

How do I know intéressant must be masculine here?

The adjective intéressant is describing livre, which is masculine in French (un livre). Adjectives typically agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. Since livre is singular and masculine, the adjective remains in its masculine singular form: intéressant.

Why is est used instead of something like est-ce?

Est is simply the third-person singular form of the verb être (to be). It means is. Meanwhile, est-ce is part of the phrase est-ce que, which is used for asking questions: Est-ce que ce livre est intéressant ? (Is this book interesting?). In our sentence, it’s a statement, so we only need est.

Could Ce livre ever be contracted like in English (for example, this book’s)?

French does have contractions, but only under specific conditions (e.g. je + ai → j’ai). The phrase ce livre does not contract; you keep both words separate. In French, you generally don’t combine ce and livre into a single word the way you might with a possessive form in English.