Vous avez chaud

What does vous avez chaud means?

Translation means you are hot.

The literal translation says You have heat.

Does it mean you are hot and sexy kinda hot or you are feeling warm kind of hot?

Bonjour ChuaJ

Vous avez chaud means that you're feeling temperature hot. Vous êtes chaud means that you're “hot” in the sense that you're sexy, willing, etc. It's along the same lines as Vous avez faim (you are hungry). In French, when referring to persons, avoir  is used to associate such qualities, altough être is used for objects. So, le trottoir est chaud (the sidewalk is hot).

Robert

Perfect, I get it now. Thank you for the reply!!

I have a problem with the usage of Vous in this example.

I speak a few languages and I find this example rather incomprehensible.

There have been no instances I will say someone is feeling hot in all these other languages. Since feeling hot or cold is a personal experience. Therefore, I wouldn't tell another party they are feeling hot or cold.

Is it used when someone has a fever and we say they have heat? Hence the usage of Vous in the example.

Honestly, I also had a problem with your example. I would assume that you got it from lesson material, but it certainly wouldn't have been my choice to illustrate the point. Is it possible that vous avez chaud was followed by a question mark? It's perfectly reasonable to phrase a question that way when used with inflection.

With regard to your original question, my take on the choice of avoir vs être revolves around the fact that atributes used with être are intrinsic, so to speak. So, être is appropriate for ‘I am short/thin etc.’. Whereas, avoir pertains to qualities that aren't inherently yours, or perhaps transient, such as feeling hungry, thirsty, hot, cold or, j'ai la chance de parler francais (i am fortunate to speak french). Obvious exceptions to that general theory are je suis malade , je suis riche, etc. I believe there was a lesson that was devoted to which is used with what.

This perspective is also relevant when asking someone how they're doing. If you were to ask using être, as in English, the response might be, “Well, I'm short, thin and brunette.” So, instead, French uses aller.

Robert

It was from lesson 1.11.

The sentence ended with a fullstop.

Great explaination above. I will have to read it a few more times in order to digest this information.

I am moving rather slowly since I try to comprehand everything before moving on. Thanks for the tips! :)

Another rule that you might run across is that you use être with adjectives and avoir with nouns (no article). But many nouns function as adjectives. I get it that chaud (heat) is a noun, but how is froid (cold) a noun and not an adjective? How can one process a rule like this in a manner that doesn't just end up effectively memorizing when to use avoir anyway? I'm finding that grammar rules have to be very straightforward before they can perform nearly as well as familiarity, and familiarity is what everyone is going to end up benefitting from in the end. Except for the rules that just click, they only serve to soothe the nerves in the meantime.

Robert

Bonjour,

Just thought I'd weigh in quickly.

Vous avez chaud was simply an example sentence that was created using one of the idioms using ‘avoir’ and going down the list through different conjugations of ‘avoir’. It just so happens that ‘avoir chaud’ landed on ‘vous’ in the order of that list, it could have just as easily been any of the others (Tu as chaud - il a chaud - nous avons chaud etc.).

These example sentences are all completely out of context, so I assume that's partly where the confusion set in. ‘Avoir chaud’ is a fixed phrase meaning ‘to be hot’ in the very literal sense. As Robert said, être chaud means ‘to be sexy’ but it also has a plethora of other meanings from warm, heated and tense to animated, warmed up, ready, tight etc. 

I woudl simply note ‘avoir chaud’ down as a fixed phrase and the example given in the leson was simply determined by the list of pronouns.

I hope that helped somewhat,

   -   Mitchell