Job titles differ depending on whether you're a man or a woman (nouns)

Hi Joan,

Yes, you would say,

‘C’est une professeur’

or

‘Elle est professeur’

Bonjour Patrick !

I see your point, therefore I've rephrased the question as "Who can this sentence be referring to?"

Bonne journée !

Je suis. -- I am.

Just for completness sake, there is the verb suivre (to follow) which also looks like suis in the first person singular.

I agree, James, the question is poorly phrased. It can be interpreted in a way that all choices are correct, i.e., Georges is speaking and referring to an (unmentioned) group of people.

But even without this, the question doesn't really test whether you can distinguish the male or female version of professeur. It just tests whether you know that sommes refers to more than one person.

Grace and Tom are a mixed gender group, whereas Grace and Anna are a pure female group. Vous êtes vendeuses is the female form and hence leaves no room for Tom.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Hi Tristan.

Les deux sont permis, techniquement parlant, un médecin est docteur en médecine.

Bonne continuation!

Hi Vernon,

The correct way to talk about women in the jobs that traditionally were the realm of men has changed over the years but now the emphasis is on the job and not the fact that they are female.

There is much polemic about the correct way to describe them but you cannot say 'la médecin', you will use 'la doctoresse' or if you talk about your female doctor, or pilot, or engineer, you will simply say 'mon médecin', 'mon pilote' , 'mon ingénieur(e)' , regardless of their sex.

In the case of teachers, it will be 'la professeur', (or 'la prof' ) and not 'un professeur femme'.

Hope this helps!

Bonjour Anh!

Because here "femme" is not an adjective, but a noun - "a woman doctor" - so it's "médecin" which acts like a qualifier here and therefore is placed after "femme".

I hope that's helpful!

Bonne journée !

Bonjour David,

Not at all, quite the contrary. French is moving toward creating feminine forms for nouns that are currently masculine only, such as un pompier, which now has a feminine counterpart une pompière. There's some debate about whether this is necessary / desirable, but it's certainly not going obsolete.