French grammar · Beginner
French Prepositions: À, De, En, and Every Other One, With Examples
French prepositions are the small words (à, de, en, dans, pour, par, chez) that link a verb or noun to what follows it. They rarely translate one-to-one from English, and à and de in particular contract with the definite article: à + le becomes au, de + les becomes des.
What it is
A preposition sits in front of a noun or an infinitive and tells you the relationship: where, when, why, with what, belonging to whom. French has a few dozen, but two of them, à and de, carry more weight than all the others combined and appear in thousands of fixed expressions.
Je vais à Paris. Je viens de Lyon. Je pars en train. Same verb shape, three relationships, three prepositions.
How to spot it
Watch for contractions. À and de merge with le and les, and the merged form is the only correct one, so *à le is always wrong.
- à + le = au — Je vais au marché. — I'm going to the market.
- à + les = aux — Je parle aux enfants. — I'm talking to the children.
- de + le = du — Je viens du bureau. — I'm coming from the office.
- de + les = des — La couleur des murs. — The colour of the walls.
À + la and de + la never contract: je vais à la gare, je viens de la gare.
Prepositions Quick Reference
The prepositions you'll need first
| Preposition | Core meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| à | to, at, in (a city) | Je suis à Paris. — I'm in Paris. |
| de | of, from, about | Le livre de Marie. — Marie's book. |
| en | in (a month, a feminine country), by (transport) | En France, en mai. — In France, in May. |
| dans | inside, in (a set time) | Dans la boîte. — In the box. |
| pour | for, in order to | C'est pour toi. — It's for you. |
| par | by, through, per | Par la fenêtre. — Through the window. |
| chez | at someone's place | Chez moi. — At my place. |
| avec | with | Avec plaisir. — With pleasure. |
| sans | without | Sans sucre. — Without sugar. |
| entre | between | Entre nous. — Between us. |
All 28 prepositions lessons
Prepositions carry more search volume than any other part of French grammar, and for good reason: they're the part learners get wrong longest. The rules that exist are worth knowing, but a large share of French prepositions is fixed by convention rather than logic, which is why each lesson below leads with real examples rather than a rule you'd have to reverse-engineer.
- De (Preposition) — As a preposition, de means of, from, or about. It marks possession (le livre de Marie), origin (je viens de Lyon), and the complement of hundreds of verbs and adjectives (parler de, content de). It contracts with le and les into du and des.
- Par — Par is the French preposition for by, through, and per. It marks the agent of a passive sentence (écrit par Camus), the route something takes (par la fenêtre), and rates and frequencies (deux fois par semaine).
- Jusqu'à — Jusque means up to or until, and it almost always appears with another preposition attached: jusqu'à for a point in time or space, jusqu'en for a year or a country, jusqu'ici for a place. It marks the limit of something, not its duration.
- Pour — Pour means for or in order to. It marks the recipient of something (c'est pour toi), the purpose of an action (pour apprendre), a planned duration (pour deux jours), and a destination (le train pour Lyon).
- À (Preposition) — À means to, at, or in. It marks destination (je vais à Paris), location (je suis à Paris), time (à midi), and the indirect object of a verb (je parle à Marie). It contracts with le and les into au and aux.
- Entre — Entre means between, in space, in time and in relationships. It sits in front of two things joined by et (entre midi et deux), or in front of a plural (entre amis), and unlike à and de it never contracts with an article.
- Merci De vs. Merci Pour — Merci takes de before a verb and pour before a concrete noun: merci d'avoir appelé, merci pour le cadeau. With an abstract noun both are possible, and de is the more formal of the two.
- Dormir Partir Sortir — Dormir, partir and sortir belong to a family of -ir verbs that drop the last consonant of the stem in the singular: je dors, je pars, je sors, but nous dormons, nous partons, nous sortons. They take no -iss- in the plural, and partir and sortir form the passé composé with être.
- Geographical Prepositions Continents Countries — To say in or to a country, French uses en for feminine countries and all continents, au for masculine ones, and aux for plurals: en France, au Japon, aux Pays-Bas. To say from, the same three groups take de, du and des.
- Partitive Article — The partitive article du, de la, de l' and des means some or any: an unspecified amount of something. English leaves it out (I'd like bread), French cannot, and it collapses to plain de after a negative or an expression of quantity.
- À vs. De — À points forward at a destination, a recipient or a purpose; de points back at an origin, an owner or a content. The pair runs through the whole language, from je vais à Paris and je viens de Paris to commencer à and finir de.
- Contre — Contre means against: physically touching (appuyé contre le mur), in opposition (voter contre le projet), or in exchange (échanger contre autre chose). It is also the word behind par contre, on the other hand, and le pour et le contre, the pros and cons.
- Après vs. Derrière — Après is after in time or in sequence; derrière is behind in space. English uses after for both a later moment and a following position, which is why the pair needs sorting out: après le film, but derrière la porte.
- Avant vs. Devant — Avant means before in time; devant means in front of in space. English before covers both, so the pair has to be separated deliberately: avant le concert is earlier than the concert, devant la salle is outside the door.
- Sous Preposition — Sous means under or beneath: sous la table, sous l'eau, sous la pluie. It also covers being subject to something, as in sous pression or sous contrôle, and it forms a large family of compounds such as sous-sol and sous-titres.
- Vers vs. Envers — Both words translate as towards. Vers marks a physical direction or an approximate time: il marche vers la gare, vers midi. Envers marks an attitude held towards a person: sa générosité envers ses voisins. The two are never interchangeable.
- Avec — Avec means with: company (avec mes amis), instrument (avec un couteau) and manner (avec soin). It takes a stressed pronoun, never contracts, and does not translate the English with of a café au lait or a girl with blue eyes.
- Chez — Chez is a preposition that only ever takes a person. It means at or to someone's home or place of work, so chez Marie is at Marie's and chez le dentiste is at the dentist's. Extended slightly, it also means among or in the work of: chez les jeunes, chez Molière.
- Dans — Dans means in or into, and it points at a definite space with something inside it: dans la boîte, dans la voiture, dans la rue. Followed by a length of time it means from now, so dans deux jours is two days from today rather than the two days it takes to do something.
- En Preposition — The preposition en means in, to, by, or made of, and its defining habit is that it takes no article. That single trait ties together en France, en voiture, en bois, en retard, and en deux heures, and it separates en from dans, which almost always brings an article with it.
- Prepositions of Place — Prepositions of place tell you where something is: sur, sous, dans, devant, derrière, entre, à côté de, en face de. They fall into two families, the short ones that attach straight to a noun and the compound ones ending in de, and the second family is where nearly all the errors happen.
- Sur Preposition — Sur means on or on top of: sur la table, sur le mur. It also expresses a topic (un livre sur la guerre), a proportion (neuf fois sur dix) and dimensions (quatre mètres sur trois), and it does not translate the English on of on the bus or on television.
- Comparative Adverbs — A comparative adverb compares how two things are done. French wraps the adverb in plus… que, moins… que, or aussi… que, and unlike adjectives the adverb never agrees with anything. Bien and beaucoup are the exceptions: they become mieux and plus rather than taking plus in front.
- Prepositions of Time — French prepositions of time answer three different questions: when something happens (à midi, en juillet), how long it lasts (pendant deux heures, depuis trois ans), and where it sits relative to now (dans une semaine, il y a un mois). English collapses several of these into in and for, which is why the French set has to be sorted by question rather than by translation.
- Sans — Sans is the French preposition for without. Because it already means zero quantity, the noun after it normally loses its article: sans sucre, sans voiture, sans problème. Before a verb it takes the infinitive, so English without waiting becomes sans attendre.
- Article Comparison — French has three families of article and uses one of them almost everywhere English uses none. Le, la, and les point at a whole category or a known item; un, une, and des count separate units; du, de la, and de l' measure out an unspecified amount. Choosing between them is a question of how much of the noun you mean.
- Prepositional Phrases — A French prepositional phrase is a multi-word preposition: à côté de, en face de, au lieu de, grâce à, par rapport à. Nearly all of them end in de or à, and that final word is what contracts with the article that follows, giving à côté du parc and grâce aux voisins.
- Geographical Prepositions Islands Cities — For cities, French uses à to say in or to and de to say from: à Rome, de Rome. Islands split into three groups: small ones take bare à (à Cuba), islands that come with an article take à plus that article (à la Réunion, aux Bahamas), and large feminine ones behave like countries and take en (en Corse, en Sicile).
Prepositions FAQs
- When do I use à and when do I use de in French?
- As a rough guide, à points towards a destination or a recipient and de points away from an origin or expresses belonging: je vais à Paris, je viens de Paris. Beyond that, the preposition is often fixed by the verb rather than by meaning, so commencer à and finir de simply have to be learned as pairs.
- Why does à le become au?
- French avoids the hiatus of two vowel-ish sounds in a row, so à and de contract with the masculine and plural definite articles: à + le = au, à + les = aux, de + le = du, de + les = des. The uncontracted forms are not an alternative, they're an error.
- How do I say 'in' a country in French?
- It depends on the country's gender. Feminine countries and those starting with a vowel take en (en France, en Italie, en Iran). Masculine countries take au (au Japon, au Canada), and plurals take aux (aux États-Unis).
- What's the difference between dans and en for time?
- Dans counts forward from now to the start of something: je pars dans une heure means I'm leaving one hour from now. En measures how long something takes: je le fais en une heure means it takes me an hour to do it.
- Do I have to memorize which preposition each verb takes?
- Largely, yes, but the load is smaller than it looks. Most verbs take no preposition before an infinitive at all, and of the rest, the à and de groups are small enough to absorb through exposure. Hearing commencer à and essayer de in real sentences fixes them faster than a list does.