French’s possessive construction
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In English, we use ‘s (apostrophe s) to indicate that one noun possesses another. The French equivalent is the preposition de, with the order of the nouns reversed.
Par exemple…
la lettre de Sandrine | Sandrine’s letter | |
les cafés de France | France’s cafés |
Literally, "the letter of Sandrine" and "the cafés of France.”
When the owner is not a proper name, it must be preceded by a modifier, such as an article, possessive adjective, or demonstrative adjective.
Par exemple…
le travail de l’ingénieur | the engineer’s work | |
les voitures de ma famille | my family’s cars | |
la lettre de cette fille | this girl’s letter |
The possessive de can’t be used with stressed pronouns; they require the possessive à.
When the owner is plural, as signified by s’ (s apostrophe) in English, the French modifier must be plural.
Par exemple…
la lettre de ces filles | these girls’ letter | |
les voitures de mes enfants | my kids’ cars |
As always, de must contract with the definite articles le and les.
les cafés du pays | the country’s cafés | |
le travail des ingénieurs | the engineers’ work |
The possessive de construction is also equivalent to a descriptive noun plus noun in English.
Par exemple…
les clés de voiture | car keys | |
le livre de français | French book | |
du jus d’orange | orange juice |
French is sometimes more precise thanks to this construction, as it makes a distinction that is missing in English.
le livre de français (French grammar book) |
vs | le livre français (book written in French) |
French book | |
du jus d’orange (juice from oranges) |
vs | du jus orange (orange-colored juice) |
orange juice |
Quiz: Possessive de |
Related lessons
- De vs du, de la, des
- Nouns
- Prepositions
- More French possession
- PwLF super list of possession lessons
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In English
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