dont in Depth
is invariable, unavoidable and badly taught. The relative pronouns page introduces it as "the one that means whose", which is true of perhaps a third of its uses and misleading about the rest. This page takes the whole word apart.
The single idea to hold: is plus a noun, folded up. It is never "whose" in itself. It is a that has been pulled to the front of a relative clause and fused with the pronoun. Everything else on this page follows from that.
Finding the de
Unfold the sentence into two plain ones and look for the . It comes from one of three places.
From the verb. A great many French verbs take before their object, and every one of them can drive a :
- -> (the book I am talking about).
- -> l' j' (the tool I need).
- -> me (the day I remember).
- -> souffre (the illness he suffers from).
- s' -> s' (the file she is handling).
- -> l' me (the tool I use).
- -> plaignent (the noise they complain about).
- , , , , all behave the same way.
From an adjective. Adjectives that take work identically:
- -> (the result he is proud of).
- content , satisfait , , capable , .
From a noun. When one noun hangs off another with , collapses that too, and this is the use English calls "whose":
- l' -> l' .
- film -> film j' .
Three different sources, one word. That is why translates as whose, of which, of whom, about which, from which and with which depending on the sentence, and why memorising an English equivalent for it never quite works.
The word order is rigid
is followed by subject, then verb, then everything else. It does not shuffle. This matters most in the possessive use, where English does shuffle and French flatly refuses to.
- L' . (The man whose daughter is a doctor.) - here la fille is the subject, so it comes straight after .
- L' . (The man whose daughter I know.) - here je is the subject, so la fille waits until after the verb.
English puts "whose daughter" together in both sentences. French puts at the front and then builds the clause in its normal order underneath. Trying to keep the English pairing gives you the classic broken sentence:
- Wrong:
L'homme dont la fille je connais. - Right: L' .
The possessed noun keeps its article, never a possessive
Because already carries the possession, the noun it possesses takes an ordinary definite article. A possessive adjective on top is not emphasis, it is an error.
- L' . (The man whose car is red.)
- Wrong:
L'homme dont sa voiture est rouge. - film j' . (The film whose title I have forgotten.)
- Wrong:
Le film dont j'ai oublié son titre.
If you find a son, or sitting after a , delete it and put back , or .
dont with numbers and quantities
This use has no tidy English equivalent, which is why it goes unlearned and why it reads so distinctly French. after a total introduces a subset: "of which", "of whom", "including".
- a , . (He has three children, two of them girls.)
- J' , . (I read ten books this year, three of them in French.)
- , , . (Twenty people, including the director, were present.)
- manifestants, . (Thousands of demonstrators, many of them young.)
- a , l' Canada. (She has two brothers, one of whom lives in Canada.)
Notice that the subset often has no verb at all: dont deux filles is a complete, correct phrase. When you do add a verb, the ordinary word order returns: dont deux vivent à Paris.
This construction is everywhere in French journalism and formal writing. Using it once in an essay is a cheap way to sound like you read French rather than translate it.
la façon dont: the way in which
A high-frequency idiom that does not look like a relation until you check. chose contains a , so the relative is :
- m'agace. (The way he speaks irritates me.)
- . (The way she works is impressive.)
English speakers reach for here, or for a literal la façon dans laquelle. Both are wrong. and are fixed.
ce dont: when there is no antecedent
Where the relative refers to a thing not named rather than to a specific noun, French uses , exactly as it uses and . English says "what".
- . (I know what you are talking about.)
- j' , c' d' . (What I need is a bit of peace.)
- plaint n' grave. (What he is complaining about is not serious.)
- me , c' . (All I remember is the noise.)
The split is the same one you already know: where the verb takes a plain subject, where it takes a direct object, where it takes . Choose by looking at the verb, not at the English.
Note the doubled in ce dont j'ai besoin, c'est **d'**un peu de calme. That second is not a repetition of the first; it belongs to the second half of the sentence, which is itself a avoir besoin de construction. It is correct, and it looks wrong to almost everybody the first time.
dont versus duquel
cannot follow a preposition. Full stop. Where the is wrapped inside something bigger, is blocked and duquel takes over.
Trigger one: a compound preposition ending in . These include bout , à , , , face , , , - , long , à cause , .
- bout duquel l'. (The bridge at the end of which the church stands.)
- long . (The river we were walking along.)
- Wrong:
au bout dont,le long dont.
Trigger two: the - hangs off a noun that is itself under a preposition. This one is subtler and catches strong students.
- y a nid. (The house on whose roof there is a nest.)
- Wrong:
la maison sur le toit dont il y a un nid.
Here le toit is governed by , so the that follows it is no longer free-standing, and is out. Compare the clean version with no preposition: (the house whose roof is red), which is fine.
The rule in one line: if anything sits in front of the , is impossible.
Worked examples
- C' . (It is a project I am very proud of.) - adjective .
- Bretagne. (The town he comes from is in Brittany.) - verb .
- j' a . (The teacher whose classes I took has retired.) - noun-to-noun , and waits until after the verb.
- , . (A team of twenty, five of them engineers.) - subset with no verb.
- n' me . (I do not like the way you speak to me.) - fixed idiom.
- confidentiel. (What we discussed remains confidential.) - , no antecedent.
- face duquel y a fontaine. (The building opposite which there is a fountain.) - compound preposition, so duquel.
Common mistakes English speakers make
The commonest fault by a distance is keeping the as well as using : "le livre dont j'ai besoin de" doubles the preposition, because already is the . Write the plain sentence in your head first, j'ai besoin du livre, and you will see that the has already been spent. The second is the possessive adjective, "l'homme dont sa fille", where French needs the plain article, . The third is English word order, "l'homme dont la fille je connais" instead of l' ; after the clause runs in its ordinary order. The fourth is using behind a preposition, "au bout dont" or "à côté dont", which is never possible and always means duquel. A fifth is choosing for the way something is done, "la façon que il parle", when the idiom is . And finally, do not stretch to cover : it is le jour où je suis arrivé for time, and only where a genuine is hiding.
See also
- The relative pronouns page covers qui, que, où and the ce qui / ce que pair that ce dont belongs with.
- The lequel, auquel, duquel page covers the compound-preposition relatives that take over where dont is blocked.
- The partitives and de page covers the de constructions that most often end up as a dont.
- The possessives page covers the possessive adjectives that must never appear after dont.
- The French grammar cheatsheet covers the whole A1-B2 grammar map at a glance.