Language/French/Grammar/Use-of-soi

Use of soi

soi is a non-specific stressed pronoun which is normally used either when it refers to non-specific persons or things, or indefinite phrases like on, chacun, nul, aucun, personne, tout le monde. It tends to be used after prepositions, with -même, and after ne ... que:

• On pense à soi

People think of themselves

• Pour une fois, personne ne songeait à soi

For once, no-one was thinking of themselves

• On doit prendre la décision soi-même

One must take the decision oneself

After mastering this lesson, these related pages might interest you: Possessive determiners, Omission of the article, Ditransitive verbs & Typical use of the definite article.

Other Lessons

• Use of faire + partitive faire du, de la
• Differences in the use of numbers in French and English Order of cardinal numbers and adjectives
• Inversion of subject and verb after some sentence initial adverbs
• Conjugation group 3
• Nouns which change form when they refer to males or to females
• Use of neutral le where no equivalent exists in English
• Nouns with irregular plurals
• Grammatical and real number
• Past participles used as adjectives with the verb "être"
• Adjectives with complements
• Use of the definite article with titles
• Meaning of tout à l'heure
• Adverbs ending in —ment derived from words no longer in the language
• Use of on
• Agreement of the past participle having the auxiliary "être" in compound tenses