Grammaire 1: on (in lieu of ‘nous’ or for general statements)

On étudie !

The subject pronoun on can mean different things. It literally means “one” which you may think sounds stuffy, but its use is extremely common in French as it’s much easier to conjugate this subject pronoun with a verb. It usually translates as followed:

(a) On = everyone/people in general

Aujourd’hui, on écoute et on achète de la musique en ligne.

                                                                (Today, people listen to and buy music online.)

En France, on mange des baguettes! (In France, everyone eats baguettes!)

(b) On ≈ we

Qu’est-ce qu’on va faire demain?  (What are we going to do tomorrow?) 

On va étudier?                 (We’re going to study?)

Toi et moi, on s’aime!      (You and I, we love each other!) 

(c) Regardless of its meaning, on is always (always!) conjugated in the 3rd person singular form, just like il and elle.