Possessive de

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
   

 En español

• De posesivo
   

 In italiano

• Di possessivo
   

 In English

• Apostrophe s
   

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