french

2nd person
3rd person
plural nous we
singular tu you
plural vous you
singular il, elle, on he, she, one
plural ils, elles
they (masculine)
they (feminine)
When referring to more than one person in the 2nd person, “vous” must be used. When referring to a single
person, “vous” or “tu” may be used depending on the situation; see notes in lesson 1.
In addition to the nuances between vous and tu, as discussed in lesson 1, French pronouns carry meanings
that do not exist in English pronouns. The French third person "on" has several meanings, but most closely
matches the now archaic English "one". While in English, "One must be very careful in French grammar"
sounds old-fashioned, the French equivalent "On doit faire très attention à la grammaire française" is quite
acceptable. Also, while the third person plural "they" has no gender in English, the French equivalents "ils"
and "elles" do. However, when pronounced, they normally sound the same as "il" and "elle", so
distinguishing the difference requires understanding of the various conjugations of the verbs following the
pronoun. Also, if a group of people consists of both males and females, the male form is used, even if there
is only one male in a group of thousands of females.
In everyday language, “on” is used, instead of “nous”, to express “we”; the verb is always used in the 3rd
person singular. For example, to say "We (are) meeting at 7 o'clock", you could say either “On se rencontre
au cinéma à sept heures.” (colloquial) or “Nous nous rencontrons au cinéma à sept heures.” (formal). For
more, see the Wikipedia entry.