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French Grammar Explained /
Living in - How to use "habiter à / en / au / aux"
Okay, I've decided to stick with French a little longer. After all, if others can do it, I can too.
Absolutely! Well said.
What are you going to teach me today?
We'll have a look at what we officially call prepositions.
What are those?
The prepositions are really short words that are usually placed in front of nouns, like in.
Prepositions in any language often seem arbitrary and often cannot be translated one-to-one.
To talk about where you live in English, you use one simple preposition: in.
| Belgium |
| Madrid |
I live in | Austria |
| Southern Italy |
| Madrid |
In French, the situation is more involved. You don't need to learn how to use these prepositions right now (we'll get to that soon enough). We just want you to notice them for now.
J'habite | en | France. (feminine country) |
J'habite | au | Canada. (masculine country) |
J'habite | aux | États-Unis. (plural country) |
J'habite | à | Madrid. (city) |
All of these prepositions would be translated into English as in.
However, when you want to say in in French, you'll need to pay attention to context to get it right!
But how do I know if a country is feminine or masculine?!
Ok, just a little explanation, look at the end of the country:
- if there is an "e" (Italie, Espagne, etc.) it is feminine
- if there is a "s" (Pays-Bas, Philippines, etc.) it is plural
The rest is masculine.