French Possessive De

The French preposition de is used to express possession with names and nouns. It is equivalent to 's or s' in English.

les rues de Rome - Rome's streets, the streets of Rome

Note that the order of the nouns is inverted in French. "John's book" translates literally as "the book of John."
 

As with the partitive article and other de constructions, de contracts with le and les to make du and des:

c'est la voiture du patron - it's the boss's car

les pages des livres - the books' pages
 

De cannot be used to express possession with stressed pronouns; for those, you need à.

 
Related lessons

More French possession
Preposition de
De vs Du, De la, Des
Contractions

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