The following chart is organized in a way that makes it easier to remember how pronouns and verbs are different from each other. It distinguishes between (a) singular and plural forms, on the one hand, and (b) 1st, 2nd and 3rd persons, on the other:

Pronoms sujets

personne	singulier	pluriel
1ère personne	je	nous
2e personne	tu, vous	vous
3e personne	il, elle, on, ce	ils, elles

1st, 2nd and 3rd person are three different points of view:

• In the 1st person, the speaker is talking about himself, herself, themselves: (I, me, we, us.): For example: “I am happy; we are happy.”
• In the 2nd person, the speaker is talking about the person he or she is talking to (you, y’all, you guys). For example: “You are happy. You guys are happy.”
• In the 3rd person, the speaker is talking about someone else who is usually absent from the conversation: “She is happy. They are happy.”

Nous vs. on

Nous always means “we” or “us”. On, however, can change meaning:

(a) On ≠ nous. On can be an impersonal pronoun like “one”, or “you” in English. For example: On mange beaucoup de fromage en France (One eats a lot of cheese in France)

OR

(b) On = nous. On can mean nous (we). For example: On mange beaucoup de fromage en France (We eat a lot of cheese in France)

On ≠ Nous

On can mean “one” or “you” in an impersonal way. For example:

À Paris, on mange des baguettes (In Paris one eats baguettes -or- In Paris you eat baguettes [Because it’s what you do in Paris!])

*Notice how in English we often use the pronoun you as an impersonal pronoun, where you means “anyone” visiting or living in Paris. It is “impersonal” because it is not referring to a specific person or group of individuals – just people in general.

On = Nous

The subject pronoun on is often used in place of nous to express “we”. In fact, in most French dialects, people use on more than nous in everyday conversation. For example:

Claire et moi, on aime le chocolat. (Claire and I, we love chocolate.)

On est très fatigués. (We are really tired.)

On y va ! (Let‘s go!)

Always remember: context is everything! For example, the following sentence could mean two different things:

En France on aime manger du pain

It could mean:

(1) In France we like to eat bread. [On = my friends and I = we]

(2) In France one likes to eat bread. [On = people in general = one]

In these examples, you can see how the line almost blurs between “we” and “one” when you speak in generalities.

In everyday speech, you want to get used to saying on instead of nous. In my experience, people rarely ever say nous unless it’s for clarification. Here are some examples.

On est mariés. = Nous sommes mariés. (We are married.)

On est américains. = Nous sommes américains. (We are American.)

On est très contents. = Nous sommes contents. (We are very happy.)

Attention: Even though On is grammatically singular, it is treated as a plural when it means “We”. That is why you see a pluralizing “-s” at the end of the words mariés, américains and contents above.

Notice how our textbook has sections titled “On parle !” (Let’s talk) and “On pratique !” (Let’s practice). On means “We” (Let us talk; let us practice)

So, we will often use on instead of nous.

On pratique !

Structure : Les pronoms toniques, disjoints

Pronoms disjoints

Pronom sujet	Pronom tonique, disjoint
je	moi
tu	toi
il, elle	lui, elle
nous	nous
vous	vous
ils, elles	eux, elles

Pour en savoir plus.