![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/07\/bon-vs-bien-in-french-1024x536.png\")
<\/p>\n“Are you feeling good?”\u00a0“Are you feeling well?”\u00a0Which of these questions is grammatically correct in English?<\/p>\n
Most likely, if you recite these questions aloud, the first option (“Are you feeling good?”) sounds a bit off, even if you don’t know exactly why. And you would be right if you picked the second option (“Are you feeling well?”) as the grammatically correct choice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That’s because “good” is an adjective that modifies nouns. “Well,” however, is an adverb that modifies verbs. Thus, if you are performing any kind of action (like “doing,” but even, in this case, “feeling”), you must use the adverb “well.” Although this is somewhat nit-picky, if somehow asks: “How are you?” The correct response would not be “I’m good,” but rather “I’m well.”<\/p>\n
French also uses the equivalents of “good” and “well,” and just like in English, their correct usage can be difficult to master. In French,\u00a0bon<\/em> is usually an adjective, making it the equivalent of “good.”\u00a0Bien<\/em>, on the other hand, is usually an adverb. That’s why you would say, for example, “\u00c7a va bien?” (“Are you doing well?) instead of “\u00c7a va bon?” (“Are you doing good?”)<\/p>\n Things can get somewhat trickier when you talk about observations using the senses.\u00a0For example, if you want to say “You smell\u00a0really good” (notice here, in English, the use of good as an adjective modifying the pronoun “you”), you would say\u00a0tu sens tr\u00e8s bon.\u00a0<\/em>In this example, the English and the French versions of the sentence align. This is because the word\u00a0bon<\/em>\/good is modifying is actually a noun, not a verb. (This is called an adverbial adjective, meaning that it is an adjective that works like an adverb.)<\/p>\n But notice how I said\u00a0bon\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0usually<\/strong> an adjective and\u00a0bien<\/em> is\u00a0usually\u00a0<\/strong>an adverb.<\/p>\n Bon<\/em> can also be a noun, as in\u00a0le bon,\u00a0<\/em>which can mean a voucher or coupon.\u00a0Bien\u00a0<\/em>can also be used as a noun, as in\u00a0les biens<\/em>, which means “goods.”<\/p>\n Also, keep in mind that\u00a0bien\u00a0<\/em>should also be used with so-called “state-of-being” verbs like \u00eatre<\/em>. Thus, you would say: Il est bien comme prof\u00a0<\/em>(“He’s a good professor”). However, if you arrange your sentence in a different way, Il est bon prof<\/em>, you need to use\u00a0bon<\/em> because it is modifying the noun\u00a0prof<\/em> or\u00a0professeur.\u00a0<\/em>A good way to keep track of this is by asking yourself if you want to place\u00a0bon<\/em> or\u00a0bien\u00a0<\/em>directly<\/strong> before a noun. If the answer to this question is yes, then you should use\u00a0bon<\/em>. If it’s no,\u00a0use\u00a0bien.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Bonne continuation!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Are you feeling good?”\u00a0“Are you feeling well?”\u00a0Which of these questions is grammatically correct in English? Most likely, if you recite these questions aloud, the first option (“Are you feeling good?”) sounds a bit off, even if you don’t know exactly why. And you would be right if you picked the second option (“Are you feeling…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/07\/bon-vs-bien-in-french-350x183.png\")