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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