Protips: The little things you learn to pro up your French

‘ces sont’ does not exist, and we’ll see why.

‘Ces’ is the plural form of the demonstrative adjectives in French, which correspond to ‘this’, ‘that’ and ‘these’ in English. Note that these are adjectives, not pronouns, meaning they describe and therefore need to be followed by a noun. The demonstrative adjectives in French are ce (masc. sing.), cette (fem. sing.), cet (before masc. nouns beginning with a vowel, such as ‘homme‘) and ces (plural for both genders). There is no such thing as ‘cettes’. Notice how all the examples below are followed by nouns.

J’aime bien ce livre – I really like this book.

Cette femme a l’air triste – That woman seems sad (or ‘this woman’)

Ces enfants n’ont pas les moyens de voyager – These children can’t afford to travel

‘Ce’ is a demonstrative pronoun, meaning it replaces a noun. It means ‘this’ or ‘that’ and is most easily recognisable in the expression ‘c’est‘ (‘This is’, or ‘It is’ – the ‘e’ in ‘ce’ is dropped because ‘est’ begins with a vowel). E.g. C’est ma première voiture. It is neutral, meaning it does not change regardless of gender. It does however have a plural form, which happens to be the same as the singular: ce.

C’est une bonne idée – It’s a great idea/This is a great idea/That’s a great idea

Ce sont de bonnes idées – These are great ideas

Now do you see why ces sont doesn’t exist?