Language/French/Grammar/Use-of-on

Use of on

Table of Contents

Nouns

• Types
• Gender
• Plural

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Determiners

• Articles
• Typical use of the definite article
• Typical use of the indefinite article
• The partitive article: du, de l', de la, des
• Use of indefinite and partitive articles after the negative forms ne... pas, ne... jamais, ne... plus, ne... guère
• Omission of the article
• Demonstrative determiners
• Possessive determiners

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Personal and impersonal pronouns

• Subject pronouns
• Object pronouns
• Stressed pronouns
• Demonstrative pronouns
• Possessive pronouns

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Adjectives

• Adjectives modifying the noun
• Adjectives which follow verbs or verbal expressions
• Adjectives with complements
• Indefinite and negative noun phrases with adjective complements
• Adjectives used as nouns
• Adjectives used as adverbs
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives
• Plural forms of adjectives
• Adjective agreement with nouns
• Invariable adjectives
• Compound adjectives
• Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
• Subjunctive versus indicative in clauses dependent on a superlative adjective
• Absolute use of the superlative

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Adverbs

• Function of adverbs
• Formation of adverbs with the ending -ment
• Adjectives used as adverbs without addition of -ment
• Phrases used as adverbs
• English and French adverb formation
• Types of adverbs
• Location of adverbs

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Numbers, measurements, time and quantifiers

• Cardinal numbers
• Ordinal numbers
• Fractions
• Some differences in the use of cardinal and ordinal numbers in French and English
• Measurements and comparisons
• Dates, days, years
• Clock time
• Money
• Quantifiers

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Verb forms

• Conjugations
• Easy ways of generating some parts of the paradigms
• Changes in the stem form of some -er conjugation verbs
• Verbs whose stems end in c- or g-
• Verb paradigms

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Verb constructions

• Relations between verbs and their complements
• Intransitive constructions
• Directly transitive verbs
• Indirectly transitive verbs
• Ditransitive verbs
• The passive
• Pronominal verbs
• Impersonal verbs
• Verbs which take noun + adjective or noun + noun complements

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Verb and participle agreement

• Subject-verb agreement
• Agreement of the past participle with the subject of être
• Agreement of the past participle of verbs conjugated with avoir with a preceding direct object
• Agreement of the past participle of pronominal verbs in compound tenses

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Tense

• The present
• The past
• The future
• Other tenses indicating the time at which events occur relative to other events
• Combining tenses
• Tenses in direct and reported descriptions of events
• Tenses with si

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The subjunctive, modal verbs, exclamatives and imperatives

• The attitude of the subject to events: the subjunctive
• The use of devoir, pouvoir, savoir, falloir
• The French equivalents of the English modal verbs: 'would', 'should', 'could', 'may', 'might', 'ought to', and 'must'
• Exclamatives
• Imperatives

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The infinitive

• Introduction: what are infinitives?
• Infinitives as complements to other verbs
• Verbs which take infinitive complements without a linking preposition
• Verbs which take infinitive complements preceded by the preposition à
• Verbs which take an infinitive complement preceded by de
• Omission of objects before infinitives
• Infinitives as complements to adjectives
• Infinitives as complements to nouns
• Infinitives in subordinate clauses
• Infinitives as polite commands
• Quick-reference index to verbs taking infinitive complements

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Prepositions

• Introduction
• Prepositions listed alphabetically from à to vers
• French translations for common English prepositions

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Question formation

• Introduction
• Yes/no questions
• Information questions
• Order of object pronouns in questions involving inversion
• Order of negative particles in questions involving inversion
• Use of question words and phrases: qui?, que?, quoi?, quel?, de qui?, avec combien de? etc.
• Indirect questions

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Relative clauses

• Introduction
• Use of relative qui
• Use of relative que
• Preposition plus qui
• Use of lequel in relative clauses
• Use of dont, de qui, duquel/de laquelle/desquels/desquelles
• The use of où as a relative pronoun
• Use of relative quoi
• Free relative clauses and the use of ce qui, ce que, ce dont, ce à quoi, ce sur quoi, etc.
• Translating 'whoever', 'whatever', 'wherever', 'whenever', 'however'
• Indicative and subjunctive in relative clauses

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Negation

• Introduction
• Location of sentence negators
• Order of negators in multiple negation
• Omission of ne in sentence negation
• Order of negative elements in questions and imperatives
• ne... pas
• ne... que
• ne... aucun(e), ne... nul(le)
• ne... jamais
• ne... plus
• ne... guère
• ne... rien
• ne... personne
• ne... ni... ni
• sans used with other negators
• ne used alone

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Conjunctions and other linking constructions

• Introduction
• Coordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions
• Conjunctions sometimes confused by English speakers
• Repeated subordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions used with infinitive clauses
• après avoir/ être + past participle linking an infinitive clause to a main clause
• Past participle phrases used as linkers
• Present participles and gerunds

How to use the pronoun "on" in French?

It can be used in different ways.

There are 4 main uses of this word.

Take a moment to explore these relevant pages as you conclude this lesson: Possessive determiners, Omission of the article, Omission of the article in noun constructions linked by de & Quantifiers and personal pronouns.

ON can be an undefined person

• Example: On m’a dit qu’il n’y avait plus de places pour le concert de Muse, c’est vrai?

I was told there were no more seats for the Muse concert, right?

In this very common case, the replaced person(s) are known to the person speaking, but it is not interesting or useful to say who it is.

Another similar case arises when we do not know who it is, it is an unidentified person:

• Example: Tiens, on sonne à la porte, tu peux aller voir?

Here, the doorbell rings, can you go see?

In this case, we do not know who is ringing.

Other examples:

• On dit que la première année de mariage est la plus difficile

People say that the first year of marriage is the most difficult

• C'est une région où l'on continue de mourir davantage de maladies de cœur que du cancer

It is an area where more people continue to die from heart disease than from cancer

• On n'en fabrique plus

They don't make them any more

• On m'a volé tout mon argent

Someone stole all my money

ON can be "everyone"

We can allow to generalize, for example:

• On est tous des êtres humains, avec nos défauts. On est faillibles.

We are all human beings, with our faults. We are fallible.

This case is easy to understand and use.

ON can be the equivalent of NOUS

You've probably noticed, we often tend to use ON instead of NOUS when speaking.

• Examples: On y va? On prend la voiture?

Shall we go? Shall we take the car?

• On est là, autour de la table, c’est le moment de se mettre d’accord.

Here we are, around the table, now is the time to come to an agreement.

• On a notre prochain RDV dans 3 mois ?

Do we have our next appointment in 3 months?

ON can sometimes replace JE

There, it starts to get more complicated.

Why would ON replace JE?

Because sometimes the person speaking does not want to be personally involved and replaces JE with ON, which is more "vague".

Let's see an example:

• Je ne sais pas comment finir ce rapport. Je n’y arrive plus. Ne t’en fais pas, on va s’en occuper.

I don't know how to finish this report. I can not do it anymore. Don't worry, we'll take care of it.

ON can be a way of saying I but also of changing our minds later and saying we're going to do it together!

If you are learning or improving your French and have never seen it before, rest assured, it is normal: this job is not very frequent.

• On est d’accord, cet emploi peut laisser perplexe.

We agree, this job can be confusing.

Sources

• https://polyglottes.org/2018/03/18/comment-utiliser-le-pronom-on-en-francais-explications-et-exercice/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUGE0zIayIw

Other Lessons

• Stressed pronouns standing alone
• Function of adverbs
• Forms of créer, nier, scier, rire, etc
• Subject verb agreement — Agreement with more than one subject
• Impersonal Verbs
• Phrases used as adverbs
• Measurements and comparisons Numbers with length, height, depth etc
• Mass nouns used countably
• Plural forms of adjectives — The normal case
• Coordination of subject pronouns
• Adjectives which normally occur before the noun
• Verb agreement with fractions
• Possessive pronouns
• Easy way of generating the imperfect subjunctive
• Repetition of the definite article