78 5.8: Structure – La préposition à
In this section, you will learn about the preposition « à ».
Listen to the audio clips that follow on this page to hear the French pronunciation of vocabulary and examples presented.
On étudie !
In French, the preposition à often means “to”, “at”, or “in”, depending on the context. But it can also mean a variety of other things that you will learn throughout this book. For this section, we will focus on using à to talk about where people and things are located.
We use this preposition to say where something or someone is located. This usually translates as “in”, like à San Diego (in San Diego) or “at” like à la plage (at the beach).
When it is followed by the masculine definite article le it must be contracted. Compare:
| féminin | masculin |
|---|---|
| à la banque | au théâtre |
| à la gare | au restaurant |
Depending on the context, au restaurant could mean “at the restaurant” or “in the restaurant”.
For cities, you only need the à. No definite article:
à Paris à New York à Kinshasa
Learn more about the difference between the prepositions dans, à, en and sur:
On approfondit !
Use the following resources to type accents and/or search for words:
- Accents: ç, à, é, è, â, ê, î, ô, û, ù, ë, ï, ü
- Dictionnaire français-anglais
