What’s an adjective for nouns, that is the adverb for verbs.
Adverbs of place help you set the exact location of where the action happens.
You’ll learn today some of the most useful French adverbs of the place you can use in everyday conversation, such as here, there, everywhere, inside, outside.
French Adverbs of Place
An adverb of place describes where an action occurs. See the difference between the two sentences in English, one without and the other with the adverb of place.
The children play. → The children play outside.
Let’s now see the French translation.
Les enfants jouent dehors.
The kids are playing outside.
Luckily for all French students, adverbs are unchangeable words. It means you won’t need to think about masculine, feminine, plural, or singular forms. The reason for this is that adverbs do not go along with nouns, but verbs, other adverbs, or adjectives.
- Va ailleurs! Go somewhere else!
Le taxi tourne à droite.
The taxi is taking a right.
Ici, Là
Ici and là are very commonly used in French.
- Ici →here, in this place, at this place, on this spot
- Là→there
Et tu es ici sur son carnet de voyage.
And, you are here on his travel blog.
Les assiettes sont ici.
The plates are here.
Venez ici !
Come here!
Elle habite ici.
She lives here.
- jusqu’ici (dans l’espace) up to here
La mer monte parfois jusqu’ici.
The sea sometimes comes in up to here.
In everyday language, both spoken and written, ici is often replaced by là.
Mme Barnet n’est pas là.
Mrs. Barnet is not here.
Note the expression çà et là, that means here and there.
Il y a des pissenlit çà et là dans notre pelouse.
There are dandelions here and there in our lawn.
Partout
- partout → everywhere, all over, in all parts of
Partout où il allait.
Everywhere he went.
Nous pourrons vendre des produits partout au monde.
We will be able to sell products around the world.
Nous vous avons cherché partout !
We’ve been looking all over for you!
Il y a des arbres partout.
There are trees everywhere.
Dehors/Dedans
To say inside/outside in French, we use dedans/ dehors.
- dehors → outside
- dedans → inside
Envoyons nos hommes dehors pour une petite balade.
Let’s send our men outside for a walk.
Ensuite, je me suis perdu dedans.
Then, l got lost inside.
Dedans + dehors
J’étais dedans et dehors toute la journée.
I was in and out all day.
Parce que tu es belle dedans et dehors.
It’s because you’re beautiful, inside and out.
Take a look at this extensive list of French adverbs of place, here.
A bit of Here and There
A bit of here and there, and we’ve got French adverbs of the place covered.
Today, we touched upon five of the most commonly used adverbs of place in French, but there are still a lot of others. Once you are familiar with these, you can expand your adverb list further.