Chez: 'at someone's place'

Chez is the French preposition that English doesn't have. It means roughly at the home of, at the place of, or among, depending on context — but no single English word does the same job. Where English needs an apostrophe-s and an awkward construction (at Pierre's, at the doctor's, at my parents' place), French uses the single elegant word chez followed directly by a person, a profession, or a group. Once you internalize chez, you'll find yourself reaching for it constantly — and missing it badly when speaking English.

This page covers all four uses of chez: at someone's home or place, at a professional's office or shop, among a group of people, and in the work or thinking of a writer or thinker. It also covers the syntactic rule that chez must be followed by a person — never a place, never an inanimate object — and the special case of chez soi with the impersonal subject on.

The core meaning: at someone's home or place

The most basic use of chez is to express location at someone's home or at someone's place. The preposition is followed directly by a person — a name, a noun like mes parents, or a disjunctive pronoun like moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles.

The full set of disjunctive pronouns that follow chez is small and worth memorizing as a unit:

These forms are extremely high-frequency in everyday French. Chez moi is one of the first phrases you'll need: it covers both at my place and (idiomatically) at home in a personal sense. Je rentre chez moi — I'm going home, to my own home, where I live.

At a professional's office or shop

The second core use of chez is for visits to professionals. In French, you don't go to the doctor's office — you go to the doctor, with chez. The preposition takes the definite article + profession, treating the professional as the person whose place you're visiting.

The list of professionals who take chez is essentially open-ended — anyone whose job involves clients visiting them in person. Common ones:

• chez le médecin — at the doctor's
• chez le dentiste — at the dentist's
• chez le pharmacien — at the pharmacist's
• chez le coiffeur — at the hairdresser's
• chez le boulanger — at the baker's
• chez le boucher — at the butcher's
• chez le notaire — at the notary's
• chez l'avocat — at the lawyer's
• chez le vétérinaire — at the vet's
• chez le kiné — at the physiotherapist's

For chains and brand-name stores, chez combines with the brand name: chez Carrefour (at Carrefour), chez Ikea (at Ikea), chez McDo (at McDonald's). For the building or institution itself — à la pharmacie, à l'hôpital, à la mairie — French shifts to à.

Among a group of people

Chez also extends to mean among a group — particularly when discussing customs, behaviors, or characteristics typical of that group. The preposition is followed by les + noun (the plural definite article) or by a national or social-group label.

This use carries a sense of as a generalization about a group. It's the preposition you reach for when describing what is typical of a culture, age group, profession, or community. English uses among, with, or sometimes in for the same idea — none of them as cleanly as French chez.

In the work of (a writer, artist, thinker)

The fourth use of chez is the most literary. It introduces a writer, philosopher, artist, or scientist when you want to talk about something as it appears in their work or in their thinking. English needs phrases like in Hugo's writing, in Proust's novels, in Kant's philosophy — French needs only chez Hugo, chez Proust, chez Kant.

This use is everyday vocabulary in academic and literary contexts, and any French speaker will understand it. It is the kind of phrase that appears constantly in book reviews, university lectures, and serious essays. For language learners, it is one of those constructions that, once mastered, makes your French sound suddenly more sophisticated.

With direction: aller, venir, rentrer chez

Chez is direction-neutral — it works with both being-at and going-to verbs. French uses the same preposition for I am at Pierre's and I'm going to Pierre's; the verb provides the direction.

The same applies to passer chez (drop by), partir de chez (leave from), venir de chez (come from), passer la nuit chez (spend the night at). French simply combines the relevant verb with chez + person.

The special case of "chez soi" with on

When the subject is the impersonal pronoun on (one, people, we), the matching disjunctive pronoun is soi — and chez soi means at one's own place or at home in a generalized sense.

The pronoun soi is used after on, chacun, quelqu'un, personne, tout le monde — any impersonal or indefinite subject. With a specific subject, the matching disjunctive pronoun is used: Pierre rentre chez lui, Marie rentre chez elle, les enfants rentrent chez eux.

Why "chez" can never take a place name

The cardinal rule of chez is that it must be followed by a person, a profession, or a group of people — never a place name, never an inanimate noun, never a building.

• ❌ chez la maison — wrong, because la maison is a place, not a person.
• ❌ chez Paris — wrong, because Paris is a city, not a person.
• ❌ chez le restaurant — wrong, because the restaurant is a building. (You'd say au restaurant.)
• ✅ chez Pierre — right, because Pierre is a person.
• ✅ chez le médecin — right, because the noun designates the person, not the place.
• ✅ chez Renault — right, when meaning "at the Renault company" (people, by extension).

The closest English equivalent of chez — at someone's place — captures the rule: there must be a someone. If there is no person, you need a different French preposition: à, dans, en, depending on the kind of place.

Why English speakers find this hard

English has no clean equivalent of chez. The closest construction is at + person + 's (at Pierre's, at the doctor's) — but English drops the apostrophe-s in many contexts (I'm going to my parents, ambiguous between parents as object and parents' as place), uses to in others (to the doctor), and uses no preposition at all in some idiomatic phrases (I'm home rather than I'm at home). All of these flatten into a single elegant word in French.

The trap for English speakers is two-fold. First, they sometimes try to translate chez with a complex English-like phrase: à la maison de Pierre — grammatically possible, but awkward and rarely what a French speaker would say. Second, they reach for à or dans when chez is what's needed: je vais à Pierre (wrong; should be chez Pierre), je vais dans le médecin (wrong; should be chez le médecin).

The cleanest fix is to internalize chez as a single tool with three jobs: someone's home, a professional's place, or a group/figure of speech. Once it clicks, you'll use it without thinking.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Chez covers four meanings: at someone's home, at a professional's office, among a group, and in the work of a writer or thinker.
• Chez must be followed by a person, a profession (with the definite article: chez le médecin), a brand or company name, or a group of people. It can never take a place name or an inanimate noun.
• With pronouns, chez takes the disjunctive set: chez moi, chez toi, chez lui, chez elle, chez nous, chez vous, chez eux, chez elles. With the impersonal on, the matching form is chez soi.
• Chez is direction-neutral: je suis chez Pierre (I'm at Pierre's) and je vais chez Pierre (I'm going to Pierre's) use the same preposition; the verb supplies the direction.
• This is one of the most distinctive French prepositions, with no clean English equivalent. Once you have it, you will reach for it constantly — and notice its absence when you speak English.