"He is a man."

Translation: C'est un homme.

[Coolchicks700]

Il est un homme is right!

[takoknight]

No it isn't. "Il est un homme" is a big grammatical error in French.

[lilyiann]

why is it wrong? i don't understand what it means for a noun to be "modified"

[Remy]

takoknight is right.

You have to use "c'est" when there is an article (une, un, le, la, or l') or a possessive (mon/ton/son, ma/ta/sa, notre/votre/leur) before the noun.

So:

• "He is a man." translates to "C'est un homme." (not: "Il est un homme.")

[Erollins]

I vaguely remember (from school, ages ago) that if the predicate of the sentence has a reflexive noun, then you use c'est...