French Prepositions with States and Provinces
Which preposition should you use with an American state or Canadian province?
Introduction | Countries and Continents
States and Provinces | Cities and Islands |
Test
In order to decide which preposition to use with an American state or Canadian province, you must first determine its gender, which is a matter of memorization: all but nine states and five provinces/territories are masculine (see my list of states and list of provinces to find out which are feminine).
- Masculine states and provinces can be preceded by either dans le
or au to mean to/in, and du
to mean from unless they start with a
vowel (see 2, below).
Exceptions: dans/de l'état de New York, dans/de l'état de Washington: these are said this way to distinguish between the cities and the states by the same name.
- Masculine states/provinces that start with
a vowel can take either en or dans
l' for to/in, and d'
or de l' to mean from.
- All feminine states/provinces take en
(to, in) and de
(from).
| Meaning | ||
| State/Province is: | To or In | From |
| masculine and starts with consonant | dans le / au | du |
| masculine and starts with vowel | dans l' / en | de l' / d' |
| feminine | en | de |
For example
| Exceptions | |||
| Masculine | Je vais dans le Nevada. | Je travaille dans l'état de New York. | |
| Il est du Québec. | Il est de l'état de Washington. | ||
| Masculine with vowel | Nous sommes en Illinois. | ||
| Es-tu d'Arizona ? | |||
| Feminine | Je suis en Floride. | ||
| Elle est de Géorgie. |
Note: Islands follow their own rules.
|
Prepositions with
Test on geographical prepositions |
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