Basic prepositions and contractions

French has eight prepositions you need on day one, and two rules that bend them. À and de fuse with le and les: Je vais au cinéma. (I'm going to the cinema.) And places choose between à, en and au. Here is the core set:

À and de carry the most grammar, so they get the next section. En does three jobs (countries, transport, time) and has its own sections further down.

The core prepositions

The place words are the ones you can point at. Here they are with a cat and a box, plus three more you will want straight away:

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1. 1sur
2. 2sous
3. 3dans
4. 4à côté de
5. 5derrière
6. 6devant

The cat is on, under, in, beside, behind and in front of the box.

À côté de ends in de, so it fuses like any de: à côté du lit, beside the bed. The next section is that rule.

The mandatory contractions

When à or de meets le or les, the two words fuse into one. This is not optional: à le and de le do not exist in French.

Only le and les fuse. La and l' stay as they are, beside the preposition:

• Je vais au cinéma. - I'm going to the cinema.
• Je suis à la maison. - I'm at home.
• Je parle aux enfants. - I'm talking to the children.
• C'est le livre du docteur. - It's the doctor's book.

The du and des here are de + article, "of the". They look exactly like the partitive du pain (some bread) on the partitives page, but the job is different, and the sentence tells you which.