"Is that a chicken?"

Translation: Est-ce un poulet ?

[day9trumpets]

poule is the term used for chicken the animal, poulet is for the meat.

[french_phoenix]

I said "poule" and it didn't accept it.

[Muzorewi1984]

I typed est-il un poulet? and apparently that's wrong, but I can't for the life of me think why. Anyone?

[alkemyst]

Me neither

[JonasCRNV]

Because you basically asked if 'he was a chicken" I assume you could use it but only as an insult.

[Muzorewi1984]

I'd forgotten about this one. Well, you can use "il" to mean "it", but I think I got mixed up with pronouns used as a presentative device and pronouns used with a complement eg:

"Voulez-vous du poulet? Il est trés bon"

That sentence seems fine to me. But I guess you would write "c'est un poulet". I always did have trouble with when you use c'est and when you use il/ils/elle/elles est. If anyone has a good guide, it'd be appreciated"

[alkemyst]

Here is a resource on the use of c'est vs il est
http://french.about.com/library/weekly/aa032500.htm

[Muzorewi1984]

Ah thanks for that. I'll look at it properly tomorrow morning when I'm not tired from work, but from my quick glance now, I still can't quite work out when you use c'est and when you use il est. Or even why my answer above was wrong! I thought perhaps c'est is used exclusively as a presentative device with unmodified nouns (c'est un poulet, c'est une voiture, or whatever), and that's why I was wrong, but I can't see that listed as among the uses of c'est at that page.

[brisimy]

I am beginner, but ce = that and est = is. With il = he, you are asking/saying is he a chicken?

[koche005]

what's wrong with "Est-ce que un poule(t)?" that's how I was taught to say it many years ago

[Muzorewi1984]

I'm not a native speaker, but that looks weird to me. I think you'd have to write "est-ce que c'est un poulet?"

[koche005]

I've done some more research and what I get is, if you want to say "is it a chicken", that would be "est-ce un poulet" but to say "is that a chicken" is "est-ce que un poulet". the English that was given was the latter. My memory is of the teacher going around the room pointing to objects, "est-ce que une pomme?, Mais non, c'est une orange...ou, Oui, c'est une pomme. Likewise, Qu'est que c'est? C'est une pomme. N'est pas?

[deactivated user]

Can a native French speaker explain why it isn't "est-ce que un poulet"? The question was "Is that chicken?" not "Is it chicken?"

[AdoElias]

I am not a native French speaker but I was told that "Est-ce que un poulet" is a nonsense. You just can't use Est-ce que + noun. Its no question at all. When using Est-ce que ... you have to have a verb. So it should be like "Est-ce que c'est un poulet?" to have it correct

[EanE1843]

If "cet" and "ce" are both masculine and "cet" creates liason between between the vowels in "ce" and "un", wouldn't "cet" be accepted as correct and not "ce"?