Lesson 4 - Grammar 4 - Relative pronoun 'dont'
In this section, we will pursue the explanation started in grammar 3, lesson 3 and grammar 4, lesson 3
Step 4 - 'dont'
Examples/ Exemples: |
---|
J'ai trois enfants dont deux vont à l'école. |
Voici le livre dont j'ai besoin. |
Voici ce dont j'ai besoin. |
In lesson 3, we studied the relative pronoun after prepositions in general. A special form of the relative pronoun is used with verbs followed by the preposition ‘de’ (of).
‘dont’ has different equivalents in English.
a. of whom, of which
French / Français | English / Anglais |
---|---|
Elle a trois enfants dont deux vont à l'école. | She has three children, two of whom go to school. |
Ses six pièces, dont deux sont traduites, ont eu un grand succès. | His six plays, three of Which have been translated, have been highly successful. |
b. of whom, of which, about whom, about which
French / Français | English / Anglais |
---|---|
Voici le livre dont j'ai besoin. | Here's the book (of which) I (have) need. |
Voulez-vous lire le rapport dont je vous ai parlé? | Do you want to read the report (which) I talked to you about? |
c. whose, of which
French / Français | English / Anglais |
---|---|
Il s'occupe des réfugiés dont la famille est restée à l'étranger. | He takes care of the refugees whose family stayed abroad. |
Les enfants dont les parents sont absents attendent ici. | The children whose parents are absent wait here. |
Notice that in all these cases ‘dont’ immediately follows the noun. If there is no noun mentioned, ‘ce’ will be used in its place and ‘ce dont’ will be translated as ‘what’.
French / Français | English / Anglais |
---|---|
J'ai ce dont vous avez besoin. | I have what you need. |
Nous achèterons ce dont il a parlé. | We will buy what he talked about. |