French 7: Prepositions

DE AND À

The most common French prepositions are de ("of"/"from") and à ("to"/"at"). These prepositions can be used in many ways. For instance, they may indicate movement or location.

De and à must contract with definite articles whenever they are adjacent.

Definite Article	De	À
le	du	au
la	de la	à la
les	des	aux

If the contraction is followed by a vowel sound, du and de la both become de l' and au and à la both become à l'. This change occurs for euphony only; the nouns do not change genders because of it.

De may be found in numerous fixed expressions, especially in adverbs of quantity.

Most articles can be used immediately after expressions and verbs ending in de, but they must follow contraction and elision rules.

When des appears immediately before an adjective, it changes to de. This only occurs with BANGS adjectives, which come before the noun.

Temporal Prepositions

Choosing a preposition for time depends on the situation, but multiple choices may be appropriate.
Pendant and durant are interchangeable and mean "during" or "for". These are versatile and can be used for most expressions of duration.
Depuis ("since" or "for") can be used for things that are still happening, and it's usually followed by a start date or a duration. It's tricky because a French present tense verb with depuis often translates to an English present perfect tense verb.
En ("in") indicates the length of time an action requires for completion and can be used with any tense.
Pour ("for") is the most limited choice and is only used with aller or partir for future events.
Chez can be combined with a pronoun or noun to refer to someone's home or workplace.
Parmi means "among" and indicates that something is part of a larger group of assorted people, animals, or things.
Devant and avant both mean "before", but devant is spatial while avant is temporal.


Using the word peu ("few"/"little") can be surprisingly complicated. By itself, peu is usually an adverb that diminishes what it modifies and is generally translated using "not very/much/well".
Appending de creates an adverb of quantity that modifies nouns.

449	la foule	the crowd	noun
450	le disque	the disc	noun
451	pur/ pure	pure	adjective
452	la somme	the sum	noun
453	du temps	the time	noun
454	faible	weak	adjective
455	une pensée	a thought	noun
456	encore	yet
457	la place	the seat	noun
458	du/ de la/ de l'/ des	some	preposition
459	de	of	preposition
460	pour	for	preposition
461	à	at	preposition
462	dans	in	preposition
463	au/ à la/ aux	at the	preposition
464	sur	on	preposition
465	sans	without	preposition
466	entre	between	preposition
467	sous	under	preposition
468	vers	towards	preposition
469	contre	against	preposition
470	chez	at the house of	preposition
471	depuis	since	preposition
472	pendant	during	preposition
473	derrière	behind	preposition
474	parmi	among	preposition
475	selon	according to	preposition
476	sauf	except	preposition
477	durant	during	preposition
478	malgré	despite/ in spite of	preposition
479	après	after	preposition
480	avant	before	preposition
481	un peu de	a little of	preposition
482	un petit peu de	a little bit of	preposition
483	jusque	until/ up to	preposition
484	jusqu'à	until	preposition
485	plus de	more than	preposition
486	à côté de	next to	preposition
487	près de	near to	preposition
488	à cause de	because of	preposition
489	moins de	less than	preposition
490	autant de	as much	preposition
491	en train de	in the process of	preposition
492	devant	in front of	preposition
493	d'après	according to	preposition
494	au milieu de	in the middle of	preposition
495	auprès de	near	preposition
496	en dehors de	apart from	preposition
497	en-dessous de	below	preposition
498	au-dessus de	Above	preposition
499	en haut de	Above	preposition
500	en bas de	below	preposition
501	hors de	out of	preposition
502	à travers	through	preposition
503	assez de	enough of	preposition
504	plein de	full of	preposition
505	afin de	in order to	preposition
506	grâce à	thanks to	preposition
507	loin de	far from	preposition
508	autour de	around	preposition