En France, au Japon, à Cuba: which French preposition before a place name?

En France, au Japon, aux Pays-Bas, à Cuba: four prepositions for one simple idea. The choice has nothing to do with distance or size. It depends on two questions: is the name plural, and if not, is it masculine or feminine? Quebec's language office and the Language Portal of Canada give the same rule, with about twenty exceptions.

Which preposition goes before a country name in French?

Two questions, in this order. Is the country name plural? If not, is it masculine or feminine?

• en before a feminine country, or a masculine one starting with a vowel: en France, en Chine, en Australie, en Irlande, en Iran, en Ouganda.
• au before a masculine country starting with a consonant: au Japon, au Canada, au Brésil, au Maroc, au Portugal, au Royaume-Uni.
• aux before a plural country: aux Pays-Bas, aux États-Unis, aux Philippines.

English speakers have a shortcut here that other learners do not. The countries that take aux are almost exactly the ones English still writes with the: the Netherlands, the United States, the Philippines. If your own language keeps an article, French keeps one too, in the plural.

The Banque de dépannage linguistique, published by the Office québécois de la langue française, states the rule this way: en is used before feminine country names and before those beginning with a vowel or a silent h, while au is used for masculine names beginning with a consonant. The list of country names kept by the Language Portal of Canada, which gives the article, the gender and the preposition for every country, arrives at the same forms and adds the plural.

There are not even three prepositions to learn, only one: au is à plus le, aux is à plus les. That is why you say je visiterai le Japon and j'irai au Japon.

How do you know whether a country is masculine or feminine?

This is the real difficulty, and it is smaller than it looks, for a reason textbooks rarely spell out: gender is irrelevant when the name starts with a vowel. Iran, Irak, Ouganda and Israël are masculine and still take en, exactly like feminine countries. Gender only decides in one case, singular countries beginning with a consonant.

For those, one clue works most of the time: names ending in e are usually feminine (la France, la Chine, la Belgique, la Colombie, la Tunisie), the others usually masculine (le Japon, le Maroc, le Brésil, le Portugal, le Vietnam). It is a memory aid, not a rule, and its exceptions are famous: the same list of country names gives le Mexique, le Cambodge, le Mozambique and le Zimbabwe as masculine, hence au Mexique.

The practical advice fits in one sentence: do not learn the gender of two hundred countries. Learn the ten or fifteen you actually talk about, your own, your family's, the ones you work with. The rest takes ten seconds to check on the day you need it.

What about cities, islands and countries with no article?

Before a city name, the preposition is à: à Paris, à Montréal, à Dakar, à Londres. When the city name contains an article of its own, the usual contraction applies: le Caire becomes au Caire.

Before an island, usage hesitates, and the entry on island names from the same Banque de dépannage linguistique explains why in a way worth remembering: à implies a place seen as a point, while en implies a place seen in its full extent. Hence à Cuba, à Madagascar, à Malte, à Chypre, à la Guadeloupe, à la Martinique, but en Corse, en Irlande, en Islande, en Sardaigne, for large islands treated as countries. Where the island name carries a determiner, both forms are correct: en Guadeloupe is as good as à la Guadeloupe.

Then comes the case that surprises learners most: around twenty countries take no article at all, among them Cuba, Israël, Madagascar, Malte, Monaco, Singapour, Haïti, Chypre and Oman. Nobody says le Cuba. The preposition then follows the island logic: à Cuba, à Madagascar, à Singapour, but en Israël, masculine beginning with a vowel.

Why do French speakers say "sur Paris", and should you?

Listen to French speakers talk about work and you will quickly hear je travaille sur Paris or j'habite sur Lyon. The turn of phrase is everywhere, especially in job ads.

The Académie française devotes a dictionary entry to it, Sur Paris, and its verdict is blunt: this poor preposition sur is worn out, it is used with everything. It separates verbs of movement, where the construction can just about be defended, from verbs of state, where it cannot: on habite à Paris, not sur Paris. For travel towards a place, it points to pour, as in partir pour Lyon.

For a learner the conclusion is simple: understand it, do not copy it. It costs nothing among friends, but it is noticed in writing, in a cover letter or in an exam. The same reflex applies to the mistakes native speakers themselves make, which we cover in The most common French grammar mistakes.

What this rule does not settle

It leaves real grey areas, and the official sources admit them. For Haïti, the Canadian list itself writes j'irai en, or à, Haïti. For Guadeloupe and Martinique, usage wavers. So there are cases where two answers are equally right.

It says nothing about French regions and departments, where usage is far less regular, and nothing about the gap between the standard and everyday speech: sur Paris is wrong and yet everywhere, like the other gaps we describe in Quebec French vs French from France.

Finally, if you are a beginner, this is not where to start. Place prepositions settle in by talking about yourself and by listening, not by revising a list of countries. Our article Starting French From Scratch suggests an order of priorities, and the level test will tell you where you stand today.

At Frenchee, these reflexes are built by speaking, with qualified native teachers, one to one or in small groups of three to five students, live and with no subscription. Saying where you come from and where you are going is often the first real conversation of a French course.

Sources

• Office québécois de la langue française, Banque de dépannage linguistique: prepositions before a country name
• Banque de dépannage linguistique: prepositions before an island name
• Language Portal of Canada, Writing Tips Plus: list of country names
• Académie française, Dictionnaire, Questions de langue: Sur Paris