French Personal Pronouns

In this lesson you will learn the personal pronouns in French. The English equivalent of a personal pronoun would be high, you, he or she etc. In French there are a few things which demand close attention. First of all there are two ways of saying you: tu and vous.

Tu means you put is used for friends and people who are younger than yourself. All of the verb conjugations which correspond to “tu” have their own form.

There is also the interesting personal pronoun of “on”. In English this would translate to one. For example, one goes to the beach. In French you can use this when you want to say we. For example, if you say, “On va à la plage” you are really saying “One coast to the beach”. In addition, you could use this phrase for “let’s go to the beach.”

In other personal pronoun which require some close attention is vous. Vous can be used when you want to say “you” for somebody older than yourself or a stranger. In addition, vous is the plural form of you and you use it when you’re speaking to a group of people.

Lastly, please note that there are two ways of saying they – one for a group of men (ils) and the other for a group of women (elles).

Pronouns List
Je = I
tu (informal) = you
il = he
elle = she
on = one
nous = we
vous = you (formal sing./pl)
ils = they, pl, masculine
elles = they, pl, feminine

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