40 important French prepositions of place, relation + time to learn

Prepositions are essential in many languages. Just like articles, if you speak French without prepositions, you’ll express yourself like Tarzan.

While this can be hilarious for your francophone friends, we can’t decently offer French lessons and allow you to parler français, jungle style.

Knowing French prepositions will allow you to:

• Describe movement
• Explain relations between objects
• Mention the location of someone/something
• And, last but not least, speak like a civilized person (no offense, Tarzan)

So, keep reading to learn everything — or almost — about the great, the superb, the amazing, French prepositions!

What are prepositions in grammar?

Prepositions are short words that link the elements of a sentence. In other words, they serve to indicate the relationships between the main words.

Some prépositions are short and simple, such as à, chez, etc. Others are a bit more complex, for example près de, d’après, etc. These are called prepositional phrases.

We’ll come back to them in detail below.

As for many aspects of learning a foreign language, literal translation from English does not work. If you don’t believe me, check out this hilarious video!

Jokes aside, the only way to learn French prepositions is… well… to learn them by heart, read a lot in French, watch a lot of French movies and TV shows — the perfect binging excuse — and the golden rule for anything: practice, practice, practice.

The complete French prepositions list

If you’ve been looking partout for the ultimate French prepositions list, search no more! We’ve split les prépositions by type to help you find the one you need. De rien !

French prepositions of place or location

Les prépositions de lieu, or French prepositions of place, indicate the location of something or someone in relation to something or someone else.

In short, they’re like a language map!

I still remember how I learned English prepositions of place, and to this day, this song is stuck in my head: “Where is the cat, where is the cat, where where where, where is the cat? The cat is on the mat, the mat is in the kitchen, the kitchen is in the house, everything in its place.”

You got the idea!

French prepositions of relation

Prepositions of relation indicate… drumroll… relations between people or things. They often imply causality or intent.

French prepositions of time

Time was invented by humans, it doesn’t exist. So why worry about it? Ok, I digress. If you want to live in society, you’ll unfortunately need to refer to time!

French prepositions of time will help you say for how long something has been happening, or when it happened.

The cutest way to learn French prepositions

Admittedly, French grammar is not always riveting. I fully understand if you don’t have a passion for pronouns, possessive adjectives or question words.

However, you probably like dogs, right? If not, don’t worry, you’re just a Chandler. If yes, I found the cutest way to learn French prepositions: Bruno!

And for animal lovers, don’t miss these furry, feathery, scaly animals in French.

With our help, and of course Bruno’s, you should be more familiar with prepositions in French by now.

If not, you can always book a French course online.

And if you’re already a pro at prepositions, you’ll find some cool vocab sur notre French blog.

À bientôt !