Prepositions of Geographical Destination (Les prépositions de lieu géographique)

Level A2

Objective: Select the correct preposition before any country, region, or city based on its grammatical category.

What you’ll learn

Distinguish between feminine, masculine, plural countries, and cities.
Apply en to feminine countries and to vowel-initial masculine countries.
Apply au to masculine countries and aux to plural countries.
Use the bare preposition à before city names.

Grammar

Four Prepositions for Four Categories

French uses four different prepositions before geographical names, and the choice depends on the noun's grammatical category. The distinction is not optional, and native speakers notice every mistake.

Feminine countries, and masculine countries beginning with a vowel: en
Masculine countries: au
Plural countries: aux
Cities: à

The same preposition is used for both going to and being in, so je vais en France and j'habite en France share the same form. Only the verb changes.

Countries, Cities, and Their Prepositions

Place	Category	Preposition	English
la France	feminine	en France	to / in France
l'Italie	feminine	en Italie	to / in Italy
le Canada	masculine	au Canada	to / in Canada
le Japon	masculine	au Japon	to / in Japan
l'Iran	masculine, vowel-initial	en Iran	to / in Iran
les États-Unis	plural	aux États-Unis	to / in the United States
les Pays-Bas	plural	aux Pays-Bas	to / in the Netherlands

Common mistakes

Watch out for these

Je vais en Canada.
Je vais au Canada.
Canada is masculine, so it takes au. The preposition en is reserved for feminine countries and for a small set of vowel-initial masculine countries.
Je vais au France.
Je vais en France.
France is feminine, so it takes en. The masculine au appears only before masculine country names.
Je vais à les États-Unis.

Examples

Je vais en France cet été.
France is feminine, so it takes en without any article. The time expression follows the destination.
Elle travaille au Canada.
Canada is masculine, so it takes au, the contraction of à and le.
Nous habitons aux États-Unis.
États-Unis is plural, so it takes aux, the contraction of à and les.
Il voyage à Paris chaque année.
Cities take the bare preposition à. No article appears before the city name.
Mes parents vivent en Italie.
Italie is feminine and vowel-initial, so it takes en with no article.
Je vais au Japon en avion.