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Ce n'est pas un mème. Ce sont mes sentiments!
I took a few years of French forever ago. Never really understood when to use ce over il, along with all the hyphenated forms ce is pushed into.
Personally, I always tried to translate back literally, so qu'est-ce que c'est -> what is it/this that it/this is. But I've also felt like this isn't the best approach given it's through the lens of an English speaker.
I think ce Is formal, so I use it in that context?
That makes sense. I always took it as ce is a more general "it" while il refers more to people or places, but I'm sure that doesn't always hold true. And apparently ce is only used as a subject with ĂŞtre for the most part. I'm too analytical to just understand without digging in lol
french is such a headache, but, then again, so is english. it's just that english is more forgiving when you mess up, lol
but, yeah... 'ce' is (iirc) a more formal declarative when speaking generally to an audience rather than when speaking conversationally with another person.
eventually, a native french speaker is going to come in and admonish the both of us for manglish their language, lol
I want to venture into some of the french speaking parts of lemmy, but I'm scared and it's been waaaay too long lmao. And I definitely wish I could just "get" it like I get english (for the most part), but idk the hopes of that for a second language. Probably have to move to France lol
Like even the way native speakers type and talk is nowhere near "proper" most of the time, but it's the language. And I wish I could do that in french, ya know? Hey, maybe Quebec will do!
Aaand I upset the native french speaker even more now.