Language/French/Grammar/on-as-an-equivalent-for-nous

on as an equivalent for nous

on can often be used as a synonym for nous:

• On avait d'abord tenté l'opération inverse

We had at first taken the opposite tack

• On sait à quelles extrémités peuvent arriver certaines personnes

We know to what extremes some people can go

• On s'y est habitué depuis longtemps

We have been used to it for a long time

The use of on instead of nous is very frequent in informal spoken French:

• Pourquoi on rentre pas à la maison?

Why don't we go home?

• On avait chanté la Marseillaise, tu te souviens pas?

We sang the Marseillaise, don't you remember?

• On y va?

Shall we go?

NB: When on refers to more than one person, many writers make any adjective or past participle which should indicate agreement show plural agreement. Not all native speakers agree with this. Teachers, for instance, require the masculine singular agreement to be observed.

• On est tous très fatigués

We are all very tired

• Après on est tous allés dans une boîte de nuit

Afterwards we all went to a night-club

Once you've mastered this lesson, take a look at these related pages: Possessive determiners, Omission of the article, Adjective—adjective compounds & Adverbs ending in —ment derived from nouns.

Other Lessons

• Conjugation group 1 — verbs whose infinitive ends in —er
• Adverbs ending in —ment derived from words no longer in the language
• Directly transitive verbs take the auxiliary “avoir”
• Time adverbs
• Plural of words in Al
• Position of object pronouns with imperatives
• Constructions which do not allow indirect object pronouns
• Differences in the use of numbers in French and English Addresses
• Imperative mood
• Pronominal verbs and body parts
• Gender of the noun indicated by its final letter
• Recognizing when an unstressed pronoun is a direct object
• Present Tense
• Adverbs ending in —ément derived from adjectives ending in —e
• Adjectives modified by adverbs and prepositional phrases