# FR: il est mort - he is dead / he died



## scandalously in love

it hasn't yet bugged me too terribly, but I've always wondered this in the back of my mind...

If I am speaking of someone who has just passed away, say in a hospital bed, for example, and I say "Il est mort," does the listener have any way of knowing whether I mean "he's dead" (i.e., as in the _state_ of being dead) or "he died" (meaning the past action)...?

I just thought of it today, because when I was telling someone about (the only plus of) driving to work in the dark, I said "At least I get to see the sun rise". It occured to me that maybe it was the same sort of thing, in English, because he had no way of knowing if I meant I saw the action of the sun rising, or the noun: "sunrise".

Are my two examples similar, or am I mistaken with the French one?

Petite, trivial, yes I know. 

So what!?  Answer me only if you like to _sometimes _think about petit, trivial things like me....

*Moderator note: *multiple threads merged to create this one


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## Nick

I've thought about this too and I have come to the conclusion that you can't tell the difference, but that it doesn't matter.

"He is dead" and "He died" are equal. Both mean that, at some point in the past, he passed away. One implys the other. Obviously if "He died", then at this point in time he must already "be dead" and vice-versa.

It is just like your English example. "I saw the sun rise." is equal to "I saw the sunrise." Obviously if you saw "the sunrise" (the noun), then you must have witnessed the rising of the sun (the action).


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## scandalously in love

true enough, Nick... but if you're concerning yourself with little nuances of expression and word selection, and exactly how you want what you said to be interpreted, it could make a difference... maybe it still just doesn't matter in French, however....

(moreso with my french example, than with the english one.. [of course a sun rising is a sunrise ]... but still!!! for the sake of being understood correctly!!)


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## Nick

scandalously in love said:
			
		

> true enough, Nick... but if you're concerning yourself with little nuances of expression and word selection, and exactly how you want what you said to be interpreted, it could make a difference...


How could it make a difference? No matter how you interpret "Il est mort", the man is still as dead as a doornail. "died" == "is dead". You cannot have one without the other.


Use another verb tense?

Il est mort = "He died" ou "He is dead"
Il mourait = "He died" ou "He was dying"
Il mourut = "He died"


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## scandalously in love

k...maybe I'm taking this too much to heart... lol... I like to write, and to be able to say different things different ways...

FOR example, in English, someone would never say to a grieving mother, "I'm sorry, but your son is dead." I dunno... it just gives a very blunt, insensitive feel to it.  Rather, you would say "I'm sorry,  but your son died"... it has a much more sympathetic connotation.

It's those kinds of nuances I'm referring to.

(Nobody's dead or dying, I'm just using this cause its the example most stuck in my head right now...)


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## Nick

scandalously in love said:
			
		

> FOR example, in English, someone would never say to a grieving mother, "I'm sorry, but your son is dead." I dunno... it just gives a very blunt, insensitive feel to it.  Rather, you would say "I'm sorry,  but your son died"... it has a much more sympathetic connotation.


Well, personally, I would definitely use the first sentence. It sounds so much more natural. "died" leaves you hanging. You are expecting something else to follow, like "from having his head bashed in" or "from nuclear radiation". You would never say "is dead from ...." so obviously "is dead" is better 

But think about it. Either way, the news is horrific. It is not like saying "is dead" makes them feel any better than saying "died" or "has died".


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## valerie

You can not differenciate, even if the meanings are different. Normally context helps. For example:
Il est mort en paix : he died peacefully (I'm not sure about peacefully)
Il est mort dans un accident de voiture: he died in a car accident
Il est mort, il ne respire plus, : he is dead, he does not breath anymore


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## kajuco

I've come to this rather late - I've only just read this thread. But I'm surprised noone picked up Nick's contradiction. First he says: 


Nick said:


> How could it make a difference? No matter how you interpret "Il est mort", the man is still as dead as a doornail. "died" == "is dead". You cannot have one without the other.


but later provides evidence of the opposite (even HE feels there's a difference, albeit not in the same way as Scandalously in Love) by saying:


Nick said:


> Well, personally, I would definitely use the first sentence. It sounds so much more natural. "died" leaves you hanging. You are expecting something else to follow, like "from having his head bashed in" or "from nuclear radiation". You would never say "is dead from ...." so obviously "is dead" is better


Of course there's an ambiguity in IL EST MORT. Even if only grammatically. You can ask the question QUAND? for one and not the other meaning.


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## scandalously in love

cool!  And thus, the debate rages on...!

i love your final point kajuco (cool name + welcome to our forum!)

action = He died... = Il est mort (... le 18 décembre...)

state/condition = He is dead = Il est mort (*when* doesn't fit, because time is irrelevent in this case...)

Aalllmost like you theoretically say (redundancy aside) ,

_Le garçon, qui est mort à l'age de 3 ans, est mort._ 

Yes, you technically wouldn't be speaking properly, but the sentence conveys two separate ideas : one, that the boy _died, _and two, that the boy _is_ now _dead_.  

Or maybe better yet,

_Malgré les dossiers qui disent que le garçon est mort, le critiques délibèrent s'il est, en fait, vraiment mort. _

Now in this case, the context clarifies the various  meanings... 

But what if the sentence has less context than that?  What if it was more open-ended?


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## Fred_C

Hi.
the last posts clearly indicate that you do not need to think in english (and to translate "il est mort" as either "he is dead" or "he died",) to feel that there are two different meanings in that sentence. The french do feel it also, and sometimes wonder about that.
I would like to add that this idea is very far from being new! In latin, "_mortuus est_" means either "he died" and "he is dead", and I remember reading that Augustine already wondered about that many centuries ago ! (maybe in "the confessions", I do not remember)


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## zakare

Hi,

I was wondering how one would distinguish between died and dead.
When translating the sentences "I'm dead" and "I died",
i get "Je suis mort" for both. 

thanks


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## Wunibald

In English there is a distinction between the act (_to die_) and the state (_to be dead_).
In French, there is the verb _mourir_, but when it's used in the past, it is the same as the state of being dead (_De Gaulle est mort en 1970 = he died_...; _De Gaulle est mort. = he is dead_). In literary French you could say _il mourut_, to mean _he died_, but this is never used conversationally.


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## Elinnea

Hello! 

Is there a way in French to mark the difference between these sentences?

He died.
He is dead.

I would translate them both as "Il est mort." Is that French sentence correct both in present and in passé composé?


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## tilt

Il est mort both mean _He died_ and _He's dead_, yes. _Mort _is both the past particle of _mourir _and an adjective.

The context usually allows making the difference. See _Il est mort depuis 1 an_ vs. _Il est mort il y a un an_.
If making a difference is absolutely necessary, it's possible to translate _He died _in _Il mourut_, even if the _passé simple _sounds more formal than the _passé composé_.


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## Thomas Tompion

Saying _il a décédé_ might be a way round if you want to say _he died_.


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## tilt

I thought of this one: _he died = il a décédé_, _he's dead = il est décédé_.

Yet I'm not sure _avoir décédé _is really correct, even if it is said by many people.
On all the site I checked, it's always _être _which is used as an auxiliary with this verb, leading to the same ambiguity as with _mourir_.


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## scloughley

Hello, I have always found it confusing to understand what "il est mort" means since mourir uses être in the passé composé.
Does it mean "he is dead" or "he died" - or can it in fact be used to mean both?


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## Il fuoco

Hello.
It can be used to mean both; where there is a need to distinguish, different verbs can be used which take avoir and so circumvent this ambiguity, such as décéder, expirer, rendre l'âme, etc. Just looking at it without any context I would say its primary meaning is 'He died' (Aujourd'hui Maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas ) In fact some French friends I have say that they don't differentiate in their minds between the two meanings when 'Il est mort' is used, so when they were just learning English they might mistakenly use one where the other was needed, but I don't know if this is representative of native speakers as a whole.
EDIT: Thinking about it again, I don't think I've ever seen it used in the sense of 'He is dead'; while I'm sure it can be, it is probably not common.


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## scloughley

Thank you.  As I think about it, there's not really a huge difference between "he is dead" and "he died".


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## ilfautque

"Il est mort" can be translated two ways from French: "he is dead" and "he died"

However, in English, these are two distinct statements that would be used in different contexts.  I am trying to figure out how, in French, to described someone as "being dead" verse "having died"

For instance, if someone died in my presence I would say "he died" rather than saying "he is dead" (though this would be acceptable too).  However, if I happened to come across someone who died in the past, I would say "he is dead" rather than "he died" (though still acceptable).

In French, what are some expressions that differentiate the nuances I am describing above?


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## DearPrudence

We have the same expressions for both but I don't think it is really a problem to us (except when we try to translate into Engish as many French people don't understand the difference between "he's dead" & "he died").


> In French, what are some expressions that differentiate the nuances I am describing above?


I think that adding the cause of death will make it clear it refers to the action (he died) and not the state (he's dead).
_Eg: "Il est mort d'une crise cardiaque."
_
But again, even if we have only one expression where you have two in English, we don't really mind. 
Isn't it rather wonderful for you that you just have to remember one expression?  Why do you want expressions that differentiate the nuances you've given?  (genuine question as this might help us help you better)


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## Ithildyn

I'm not sure if what I'm going to say will make much sense- I'm not a grammarian- but, I'd liken this to how the verb "to be born" is kind of tricky in English. You cannot use a present-tense form of the verb to speak of a baby that is in the process of coming into the world, nor a past tense one to refer back to that punctual event (you cannot say the baby "borned"  (nor "the baby births".... that verb has a whole other meaning (this is creepy))). Anyway, what I mean is that we tend to speak of it in French after the action is done. Like in English you go with "he is born", in French you go with "he is dead" (il est mort).

Death is a pretty permanent state, therefore once the deed is done, the person "est mort(e)". 
If someone died in your presence, you could say "Il est en train de mourir" to refer to the fact that the person is on the verge of dying. If the person just died, you could say "Il vient de mourir" which means exactly that, "he just died".

If we look at the other verb tenses, nothing really matches "he died"...

One can say "Il meurt" ("he dies") when the person is in the process of agonizing or can be used  for the punctual event in "présent historique" (speaking of past events in the present tense to make it more "dynamic") to say stuff like "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart meurt le 5 décembre 1791 à ...".

Otherwise, the simple past "Il mourut" can be used to refer to the punctual event, but only in a past narrative.

The imparfait, "il mourrait", would refer to the state of being in the process of dying, in a past narrative.

So, huh, that's about it for my long-winded explanation. Hope I made a little sense!


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## quinoa

Mind "il mourait" with 1 "r".

"Il est mort devant moi." (verbe "mourir" au passé composé avec l'auxiliaire être)

"Regarde, il ne bouge plus. Il est mort." (= il n'est plus vivant) : verbe être mort au présent, mort est ici un adjectif.


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## ilfautque

Let's take the sentences "Il était mort quand je l'ai trouvé" and "Il est mort devant je suis arrivé"

Is "mort" in the first sentence an adjective or verb?


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## quinoa

_Il était mort quand je l'ai trouvé _(= il n'était plus vivant, mort is an adjective)

_Il est mort devant je suis arrivé _(this doesn't make sense, what do you mean?)


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## ilfautque

"Il est mort devant je suis arrivé" is "He died before I arrived"  Apparently I have made a mistake, what might that be?  Trying to use "mort" as a verb within the context, not as an adjective.


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## pointvirgule

You meant to say, _Il est mort avant que j'arrive_. 
In this instance, _est mort_ is indeed a verb.


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## Nicomon

In fact, what we're missing in French is the childish and totally incorrect form  « _il a mouru » _ which would be a literal translation of _he died, _and make the "nuance" between _he died _and _he's dead = il est mort_. I remembered this thread.

One way around it if you want to use the auxiliary « _avoir _» instead of « _être _» is to use formal expressions, such as :
_il a rendu l'âme / il a rendu son dernier souffle_ _devant moi / avant que j'arrive_. 

There's also the very old _trépasser_. But you'd sound somewhat strange saying : _il a trépassé devant moi. _


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## lilyrobertfoley

[…]
I just would like to add to Scandalously in Love's comment about "he died" being an action and "he is dead" being a state, that these things are _completely different_!  at least to my mind-- a difference that you would have to clarify in French with some kind of time marker i.e. "il est mort hier" = "he died".  For me "he died" = the presence of death sometime in the past whereas, "he is dead" is the absence of the person in the present.  In other words it's the difference between talking about the moment of this person's death, and the present reality of them not being around.  Although these two things perhaps represent the same reality, rhetorically we're talking about two completely different things!  Effectivement, a nuance that gets eclipsed in the French by the verbal homophony that is also present in your lovely example of "sun rise".


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## nosikliw

I still have a question about this, particularly when asking the question, because it does seem to make more of a difference when you ask the question: Did he die?  Is he dead?  The first one could be used to clarify, such as: Did he die quickly/without pain/from a car accident/at home/etc?  But the second doesn't work the same, at least in English.  So my question is how do we say in French: Did they die _____ ?


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## Maître Capello

Well, just like "he is dead", "he died" and "he has died" are all translated as _il est mort_; "Is he dead?", "Did he die?" and "Has he died?" are all translated as _Est-il mort ?_ (or _Est-ce qu'il est mort ?_).

PS – Welcome to the forums, nosikliw!


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## Nicomon

I agree with MC.

I'll just add that for a sentence like _did he die quickly/without pain_, you could also say : 
_
- A-t-il e_u (or _Est-ce qu'il a eu_) _une mort rapide / paisible / sans douleur? 

_


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