Part 4 of the Greetings and Goodbyes series :
" Vous êtes une amie de ma sœur "
Oui , je "LE " suis , comment va votre sœur ?
I understand that it means , yes I am in English but the speaker was a woman and she used " LE " . I thought she should’ve used " La",
I did some search online and it seems it’s always " le" when it replaces a pronoun or an adjective.
So does " oui, Je le suis " means yes, I am ? Can a woman use it when she is refering to herself ? Is it common ?
I’ve just contacted two persons and they both told me that it’s wrong to say " je le suis " But the conversation was between two native speakers. I hope some native French speakes clear up the gramitacal confusion.
Yes it’s always “le”, even for a woman. Saying “le” allows you not to repeat the rest of the sentence, it replaces “une amie de [votre] soeur”.
Instead of saying “Oui, je suis une amie de votre soeur”, you can say “oui, je le suis”.
It is very common even if in everyday language we would tend to say “oui” only.
Hi Moath,
I think you’re confused because when “le” “la” replace a direct object we use “la” for a feminin noun. Ex: je mange la pomme, je la mange. Je vois ma seur, je la vois. But with the verb “être” here, it’s not a direct object.
With an adjective we would use “le” even in feminin: tu es content? oui, je le suis. But repeating part of the sentence in your answer would only be to insist. “oui, je le suis vraiment, je t’assure”; si, si, je le suis". If not, we would just say “oui”.
To be honest, using this sentence where “le” replaces “une amie de ma soeur” sounds strange to me. We wouldn’t answer this way. I’m not even sure it’s correct. We would just say “oui” or “oui, c’est ça”, “c’est bien ça”, “tout à fait”, “effectivement”. “je le suis” really sounds unnatural.
The rest of the lesson is a bit unnatural too. For instance, puting the verb before the subject when asking a question is something we never do when having a conversation with someone. That’s written French, or very formal French like when s.o. gives a public speech at a conference. And instead of answering “oui, je suis Georges” (again, repeating part of the sentence is not something we usually do) we would say “oui, c’est moi”.