French Pronouns
Les Pronoms
Pronouns are words that substitute for nouns. There are a lot of different kinds of pronouns,
which can make it very confusing to try to figure out what's what. This summary
will give you an idea of
the different kinds of French pronouns and includes links to detailed lessons and
quizzes.
Personal pronouns
Don't take it personally - personal simply means that these
pronouns change according to the grammatical person that they represent.
| Subject | Direct Object | Indirect Object | Reflexive | Stressed |
| je | me* | me* | me* | moi |
| tu | te* | te* | te* | toi |
| il elle on |
le la |
lui | se | lui elle soi |
| nous | nous | nous | nous | nous |
| vous | vous | vous | vous | vous |
| ils elles |
les | leur | se | eux elles |
*In the imperative, me and te sometimes change to moi
and toi - learn more.
Impersonal pronouns
These aren't as cold as they sound - impersonal here simply means that these
pronouns do not change according
to grammatical person; however, some of them change to agree in gender and number with the noun
that they replace.
| Adverbials | replace à + noun or de + noun | y, en |
| Demonstratives | refer to a previously mentioned noun | celui, celle, ceux, celles |
| Indefinite Demonstratives |
have no specific antecedent | ce, ceci, cela, ça |
| Indefinites | are unspecific | autre, certain, plusieurs... |
| Interrogatives | ask who, what, or which one | qui, que, lequel |
| Negatives | negate the noun that they replace | ne... personne, ne... rien... |
| Possessives | replace possessive adjective + noun | mien, tien, sien... |
| Relatives | link clauses | qui, que, dont... |
| Indefinite Relatives | link clauses but are unspecific | ce qui, ce que, ce dont... |
| Parts of Speech |
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