French Demonstratives

French has four demonstrative adjectives - ce, cet, cette, ces - covering "this" and "that" together. Pick the form by the noun's gender and number; the near / far distinction is optional and handled separately.

The four forms

The plural ces is the same for both genders, the same way les and des are.

ce vs cet

Both are masculine singular. The choice is purely phonetic.

• ce before a consonant: ce livre, ce chien, ce film, ce garçon
• cet before a vowel or silent h: cet homme, cet arbre, cet ami, cet hôtel, cet enfant

Cet and cette are pronounced identically. Only the spelling differs. If you mishear them in speech you can't tell them apart - you have to know the noun's gender.

Feminine and plural

Feminine singular always cette, regardless of the next sound:

• cette femme, cette maison, cette idée, cette école

Plural always ces:

• ces livres, ces femmes, ces enfants, ces idées

The -ci / -là near / far distinction

French doesn't bake the near / far split into the determiner. Ce livre can mean "this book" or "that book"; context decides. When you genuinely need to mark the distinction, append the suffixes -ci (here, near speaker) and -là (there, away) to the noun, with a hyphen.

• ce livre-ci (this book here)
• ce livre-là (that book there)
• cette maison-ci (this house)
• cette maison-là (that house)
• ces enfants-ci ... ces enfants-là (these children ... those children)

The suffixes are common in contrasts ("this one or that one") and rare in isolation. If you only need a vague gesture, plain ce / cet / cette / ces is fine.

Worked examples

• Ce film est excellent. (This film / that film is excellent.)
• Cet homme parle français. (This man speaks French.)
• Cette voiture est rouge. (This car is red.)
• Ces enfants sont fatigués. (These children are tired.)
• Je préfère ce livre-ci à celui-là. (I prefer this book to that one.)
• À cette époque, j'habitais à Paris. (At that time, I was living in Paris.)

Common mistakes English speakers make

The big one is using ce before a vowel and writing ce homme. It has to be cet homme - the rule is mandatory, not stylistic. The second is over-using -ci and -là because the English brain wants to translate "this" and "that" word for word. Don't. Most French speakers default to plain ce / cette / ces unless the contrast is doing real work in the sentence. The third is forgetting that demonstratives don't replace the noun - "this one" is celui-ci / celle-ci, a separate set of demonstrative pronouns covered on the intermediate grammar page.

See also

• The French grammar cheatsheet covers the full A1-B1 foundation.
• The French articles page covers le / la / les and the gender rules demonstratives also follow.