Quelqu’un me dit that you want to learn French pronouns to sound like a social butterfly. In this article we highlight eight French pronouns to get you started.

8 French Pronouns to Talk Like a Social Butterfly For Beginners

‘Quelqu’un me dit’

It means “Someone tells me.” You’ll hear these words in the song by Carla Bruni in her smash hit by the same name. The movie 500 Days of Summer featured the song which you can listen to on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC7Re8cczj0You can find the full lyrics here. Carla Bruni’s song begins with, “On me dit que nos vies ne valen pas grand chose.”

Our First 3 French Pronouns

In this one sentence we’ve already got three French pronouns to share with you.

• On

• Me

• Nos

Not only that, but we’ve also got three different kinds of pronouns. As with English, French pronouns include direct forms, indirect forms, as well as possessive forms.Examples in English would be:

• Direct: I (French: je)
• Indirect: me (French: moi, me)
• Possessive: my (French: mon, ma, mes)

In addition, the pronouns I, me and my are known as first person singular pronouns.Getting back to the lyrics in Carla Bruni’s song, the examples in the first line of the song are:

• Direct: on
• Indirect: me
• Possessive: nos

“On me dit que nos vies ne valen pas grand chose,” Carla Bruni sings. You might translate this loosely to: ‘they tell me our lives aren’t worth much.”The most fascinating word in this sentence may be on, because the French use it in a variety of ways. The closest translation in English is the anonymous ‘one’. Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can use this versatile French pronoun:

• On ne doit pas faire ça. One mustn’t do that.
• On y va. We’re going (there). Let’s go (there).
• On m’a dit que… Somebody told me that… They told me that… They said to me that…

As you see, depending on context, on can take on the meaning of one, we, somebody, and they.

3 More French Pronouns

Now let’s take a look at some more French pronouns. Let’s call this the ‘-oi’ trio. Moi, toi, and soi.

• moi - me
• toi- you
• soi- one(self)

Having two forms of indirect pronouns shows that French is more complex than English in this area. Consider the differences in these examples and observe whether the French are using me or moi:

• Ça me plaît. That pleases me. (I like it)
• Ça m’appartient. That belongs to me. Notice that when followed by a vowel, me converts to m’.
• Tu me vois. You see me.
• Elle vient avec moi. She’s coming with me.
• Je suis chez moi. I am at home. (I’m at my place)
• Regarde-moi. Look at me. (said in familiar, singular form)

In French, you’ll have to learn some rules to figure out when to use me and when to use moi. You’ll see it’s fairly simple and it won’t take too long to get the hang of it.Here is a breakdown of when you will use me and when you’ll use moi.

When to use Moi

If there is a preposition, then you’ll want to use moi instead of me. Here are three examples of French prepositions and the use of moi. 1. After the preposition à in French. à moi = to me. Examples include:

• donne ça à moi give that to me
• à moi il me semble juste to me it seems fair
• pas à moi not to me
• elle pense à moi she’s thinking of me

2. After the preposition chez in French - chez moi at my place, at my house3. After the preposition de in French

• Elle a besoin de moi. She needs me
• Vous vous moquez de moi You’re making fun of me (plural / polite you)
• Tu te souviens de moi. You remember me.

Other prepositions also require the use of moi rather than me. So just remember, if there’s a preposition, use moi instead of me. If the verb is in the imperative, then you’ll also use moi instead of me. The imperative form of a verb is when you are telling or ordering somebody to do something directly. Here are two examples:

• Raconte-moi. Tell me. (Familiar, singular)
• Expliquez-moi. Explain to me. (Polite, plural)

When to use Me

If there’s no preposition and the verb is not in the imperative, then you will use me instead of moi.

• Tu me vois. You see me.
• Elle me la donne. She gives it to me.
• Il m’écoute. He listens to me.
• Il va me parler. He’s going to talk to me.
• Je t’en prie de m’écouter. Listen to me please.

Notice that in the last example, you still don’t use the imperative form of the verb (écoute). Instead you the infinitive (écouter) So it’s more like saying ‘I kindly request you to listen to me’.Now that we’ve taken a look at when to use moi and when to use me, think about the other two pronouns we introduced along with moi. They were toi and soi. See below to compare:

• moi, me - me
• toi, te - you (familiar, singular)
• soi, se - one(self)

Let’s run through the some of the examples we used with moi and me, so you can see how they would work for toi and te.

When to use Toi

• à toi il te semble juste - To you it seems fair
• pas à toi - Not to you
• elle pense à toi - She’s thinking of you
• chez toi - At your place, at your house
• elle a besoin de toi - She needs me
• Je me souviens de toi - I remember you

When to use Te

• Je te vois. You see me.
• Elle te la donne. She gives it to you.
• Il t’écoute. He listens to you.
• Il va te parler. He’s going to talk to you.

That leaves us with soi and se, which also work in a similar fashion. Moi/me is the first person singular. Toi/te is the second person singular. Soi/se is the third person singular. This is where things get a bit complicated because in French him is lui and her is elle. So the pattern that we see from moi and toi doesn’t continue for soi because the French use soi for self and usually together as in oneself: soi-même. Let’s take a look at some examples of how to use soi. Notice that you’ll usually need to use it together as soi-même. An exception is chez soi.

• à soi-même il se semble juste - it seems fair to oneself
• pas à soi-même - not to oneself
• elle pense à soi-même - she’s thinking of herself
• chez soi - at one’s one house
• elle a besoin de soi-même - she needs herself
• elle se souvient de soi-même - she remembers herself.

Notice how the French use se in the last sentence, elle se souvient de soi-même, because it is an example of using reflexive verbs. This post brought us 8 French pronouns including me, te and se. If you are looking for more examples of French pronouns for you to study, you might want to check out these two YouTube videos from Madame Anna Graham. The first one is on personal pronouns.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtmIVuO1z8o The second one is on relative pronouns. Enjoy!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zAC1k7QbGI