Day 2 - French Prepositions

As in English, the actual choice of a preposition can be highly idiomatic. For example, when people say have a beer on me or I'm waiting on a Big Mac and fries, the preposition on doesn't have its basic meaning of "on top of"— it's essentially the preposition that speakers have got used to using in these cases for no especially good reason. So you can imagine that in other languages, the choice of the equivalent of on in these cases would also vary somewhat.

1. The prepositions à, en, au,  and aux indicate a location or direction (in, at or to some place).
2. The prepositions de, du and des indicate a place of origin (from).

• The preposition à is used before the names of cities.
• Je vais à Paris. = I am going to Paris

• The preposition en is used with names of feminine countries.
• Je vais en France. = I am going to France.

• The preposition au is used with masculine countries.
• Je vais au Canada. = I am going to Canada.

• The preposition de is used before the names of cities and feminine countries.
• Je viens de France, de Paris. = I come from France, fom Paris.

• The preposition du is used with masculine countries.
• Je viens du Canada. = I come from Canada.

• The prepositions aux and des are used with plural countries.
• Je vais aux États-Unis. = I am going to the United States.
• Je viens des États-Unis. = I come from the United States.

To describe by what means someone is travelling, use en:
en bus, en avion, en voiture, en bateau, en métro, en taxi, en tramway, en moto…

But if you use your own legs or your horse’s legs, use à:
à pied, à cheval

The preposition dans indicates a place more precisely than à and often means à l’intérieur de (inside):
Dans la chambre = in the bedroom

The preposition chez is used with a person, a person’s name, a pronoun, a person’s profession or business, a group or society:
Chez Pierre, chez Yves Saint Laurent, chez moi, chez le dentiste, chez Peugeot…

You may see the use of the preposition par such as par le train.
Forget it! Don’t make prepositions more confusing as most of the time French people say en train!