French Possession
Learn the four ways to express possession in French
There are four grammatical constructions used to express possession in French:
- possessive de
- possessive à
- possessive adjectives
- possessive pronouns
The following is a summary of the different French constructions used to express possession, with links to detailed information.
The preposition de is used with a noun or a name in place of the 's or s' in English.
John's book - le livre de Jean
the girls' room - la chambre des filles
The preposition à is used with the verb être in front of stressed pronouns. This construction emphasizes the ownership of the object.
The book is his - Le livre est à lui
It's a book of his - C'est un livre à lui
Possessive adjectives are the words used in place of articles to indicate to whom or to what something belongs. The English equivalents are my, your, his, her, its, our, and their.
It's his book - C'est son livre
Here's your book - Voici ton livre
Possessive pronouns are the words which replace a possessive adjective + noun. The English equivalents are mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs.
This book... is it yours or his ? - Ce livre... c'est le tien ou le sien ?
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