A beginner’s question: both the old and the new courses have sentences along the lines of “c’est ma mère et mon père”, while my reflex would be to say “ce sont ma mère et mon père”. A quick Google search revealed that both versions pop up on the web. What is the difference, i.e. which one would be more natural for a native speaker?
Bonjour Ora9,
This is a very valid question and very tricky for that example in particular. As a general rule, I can tell you that spoken French almost exclusively uses c’est even when ce sont would be more grammatically correct. Politicians and news presenters use c’est and it’s seems to become standard.
Now, even if you wanted to be super correct I would still hesitate in the case of ma mère et mon père because it doesn’t feel like a real plural, more like c’est ma mère et c’est mon père.
If it were parents then ce sont mes parents should be the correct form in writing.
So, bottom line… most French speakers wouldn’t notice and/or correct you if you used c’est instead of ce sont 
Hope that helped!
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Any such statement should require a correction
c’est mes clés
c’est mes lunettes
c’est mes affaires
Spoken language is not proper language, learn the correct sentence and then experience the variations. I cringe, sorry, for not being “most French speakers”
Hello sircemloud,
Thank you very much for your input. I just checked and there are no instances of c’est that would need to be changed to ce sont in the current course.
As for spoken language not being proper language, let’s not venture in that discussion. The point of view in our courses is to be as descriptive of the current used language as possible and as little prescriptive as can be.
Have a nice day!
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Thank you very much, it was most helpful!
[In French 2]
there is a video, girl sais: “il a douze ans” but you can’t make it right unless you click on the answer “how old is he?”
I guess you mean the French 2 course by Memrise, so I put it in the thread of the Memrise course for English speakers right?
Hello Julian,
The issue with le secret should have been fixed now. Please let me know if you still have this happening!
Wishing you the best in your learning endeavours!
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Hello Kiboke!
Thanks for reporting this… a fat finger must have slipped and the video was added to the wrong items… It’s now been fixed.
Best of luck with your learning experience!
Merci beaucoup Guillaume!
So far this problems still exists, right? When will it be fixed?
It still doesn’t accept le fruit on the app. And I redownloaded French just to check.
Hello !
We are aware this can be an issue and we are looking at way to fix it in every course. Could you please give me some concrete example of sentence where you were struggling? I can imagine it being a problem when it’s only tu and vous but probably not when there is a verb in the sentence because then it’d have to agree.
Please let me know and we’ll find a way to solve it!
Ok WildSage,
Now it should definitely work. Please try logging off and on again (no need to redownload the app) and let me know.
Cheers!
For example in the first level of French 3: „do you have a map?", it could either be either “tu as” or “vous avez”. Then in French 2 for example in level 12: „what do you want to buy?", you would assume that is it formal, since normale a clerk would’t be informal to you, but it is in fact informal. But in level 3 of French 2 it kinda is the other way round when the costumer asks: „do you have any desserts?" and it is in fact formal, but I have to remember that. The best solution would simply be a (formal)/(informal) behind such sentences (like it usually is solved). Anways, thanks for this great course (I forgot to mention that in my first post). 
Thank you for those example. However, do you actually get all the words necessary to create both sentences in a tapping test? Do you have qu’est-ce / tu / veux / vous / voulez / acheter available to choose from?
Sorry, I have tapping test deactivated but I just reviewed the example “do you have a map" and “vous avez” is a wrong answer.
I see… for the moment we are focusing on improving the courses on mobile where you can’t deactivate the tapping tests. We will definitely keep working on ways to improve the experience for all users. I’ll just ask you to bear with us a little. I’ll come back to you as soon as we have a solution.
Very sorry for the inconvenience.
In french 1 there’s a match “Are you ready?” - "Est-ce que vous etes pret?"
Please let us know you’re asking for plural. I forget from time to time and give the wrong answer.
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