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How to say something belongs to somebody
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Possession in nouns
What belongs to who?
In English we tack 's onto the end of a name or a noun to say that something belongs to that person or object.
- Barney's house.
- Homer's hat.
- Lisa's homework.
The equivalent in French is the little word de (of). For example:
La jupe de Catherine
Catherine's skirt
Note that this literally translates to "The skirt of Catherine."
As you'd probably expect, when you put de in front of a vowel, it contracts into d':
La chemise d'Antoine
Antoine's shirt
When the object belongs to a group of people, the de turns into a des. Notice that the s sound in des is silent:
La chambre des parents
The parents' bedroom
But it's not so silent when you put the des in front of a vowel. Here it turns into something like a Z sound to make pronunciation less awkward:
La chambre des enfants
The children's bedroom