In the latest segment of his tour of L'Isle-Adam, Daniel makes repeated use of the common expression il s'agit de:

Il s'agit tout simplement de la plus grande piscine fluviale de France.

Quite simply, it is the largest river pool in France.

Caption 7, Voyage en France - L'Isle-Adam

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Il s'agissait du Tarzan de l'époque, le célèbre Johnny Weissmuller.

It was the Tarzan of the time, the famous Johnny Weissmuller.

Caption 13, Voyage en France - L'Isle-Adam

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BANNER PLACEHOLDER

We could rewrite the above sentences with the expression c'est/c'était: C'est tout simplement la plus grande piscine fluviale..., C'était le Tarzan de l'époque.... But whereas c'est simply means "it is," il s'agit de can also mean "it's about" or "it's a question of." You can use it to specify something you just mentioned:

Il s'agit de voir où sont les abus.

It's a question of seeing where the abuses are.

Caption 13, Le Journal - Contrôle des prix alimentaires

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La seule prison qui se trouve dans Paris intra-muros,

The only prison located within Paris itself,

il s'agit de la prison de la Santé.

namely, the Santé [Health] Prison.

Captions 20-21, Voyage dans Paris - Le Treizième arrondissement de Paris

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Or you can use it to describe the content of something, for example a movie. Here's a very basic synopsis of the movie Jaws: 

Dans ce film, il s'agit des attaques de requin.
This movie is about shark attacks [literally: "In this film, it's about/it's a question of shark attacks"]. 

S'agir is an impersonal verb, which means it can only be conjugated with the pronoun il. So you couldn't say, Ce film s'agit des attaques de requin, even though that might seem like a more direct translation of the English. 
 

The best way to understand the nuances of il s'agit de is to hear it in context. You can do a Yabla search to find all the videos containing this extremely common expression. 
 

Stay tuned for our next lesson and tweet us @yabla or send your topic suggestions to newsletter@yabla.com!