Subject pronouns

Summary

French subject pronouns (je, tu, il, elle, on, nous, vous, ils, elles) name who performs the verb and decide its conjugation; unlike English, they can almost never be dropped.

Explanation

The subject pronouns are je (I), tu (you, informal singular), il / elle / on (he / she / one), nous (we), vous (you, formal or plural) and ils / elles (they). Each pronoun selects one specific verb form, so they are the backbone of every conjugation you learn.

Unlike Spanish or Italian, French is not a pro-drop language: the pronoun must be present even when the ending would already show the person. You say je parle and tu parles, never just parle as a statement. The only routine exception is the imperative, which has no subject (parle !, parlons !).

French forces several distinctions English does not make. tu is informal and addresses one familiar person, while vous is either polite to one person or the plural "you" for several people; choosing wrongly can sound rude or oddly distant. In the third person, ils refers to a masculine or mixed group and elles only to an all-feminine group, so a single man in the room turns elles into ils.

The pronoun on is extremely common in speech. Literally "one", it takes the same verb form as il / elle, but in everyday French it usually means "we" (on y va = let's go / we're off) and can also express a vague "people / someone" (on frappe à la porte = someone's knocking). In careful writing, nous is preferred for "we".

Watch the spelling and sound changes around je. Before a vowel or a mute h it elides to j' (j'aime, j'habite); otherwise keep je before its verb (je parle), and use the stressed form moi when the word stands alone (Moi ? Je ne sais pas).

Rule of thumb: always state the subject pronoun, match il/elle/on/ils/elles to the gender of the people or things involved, and decide tu vs vous by your relationship to the listener. When you mean a casual "we", reach for on; when you write formally, switch back to nous.

Examples

Je parle français et nous habitons à Paris. — I speak French and we live in Paris.

Tu viens ce soir ? Et vous, monsieur, vous venez aussi ? — Are you coming tonight? And you, sir, are you coming too? (tu to a friend, vous to address someone politely.)

On va au cinéma ce soir ? — Shall we go to the movies tonight? (Colloquial on means "we" but takes the il/elle verb form.)

Marie et Paul sont là : ils arrivent maintenant. — Marie and Paul are here: they are arriving now. (A mixed group takes ils, not elles.)

J'habite ici depuis trois ans. — I have lived here for three years. (je elides to j' before a vowel or mute h.)

Common mistakes

Prerequisites

• Present indicative

Related rules

• Stressed / disjunctive pronouns (moi / toi / lui)
• Direct-object pronouns (me / te / le / la / nous / vous / les)
• tu vs vous (politeness)