Qui est-ce ? asks "who is that?", and everything from Unit 4 answers it: C’est ma mère. Elle est grande. Elle a quarante ans. Three sentences — who they are, what they are like, how old they are — describe any person you know, which is this unit’s finish line.
| French | English | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| Qui est-ce ? | Who is that? | kee ESS |
| C’est ma mère. | That is my mother. | seh mah MEHR |
| Il est petit. | He is small. | ee-leh puh-TEE |
| Elle est contente. | She is happy. | eh-leh koh(n)-TAH(n)T |
| Il a deux ans. | He is two years old. | ee-lah duh ZAH(n) |
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
Pick a person. Sentence one: C’est + mon/ma + who. Sentence two: Il/Elle est + a describing word. Sentence three: Il/Elle a + age + ans. That is a portrait in French, made entirely of this unit.
On paper, write the three-sentence portrait for two family members — the workbook’s Unit Check 3 does exactly this with marking lines and a score box.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The French Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.
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