L'Élision des Pronoms COD: l'

When the direct object pronouns me, te, le, la meet a verb that begins with a vowel sound, they collapse: me becomes m', te becomes t', le and la both become l'. Je le ai vu doesn't exist — it's je l'ai vu. Tu me écoutes is wrong — it's tu m'écoutes. The apostrophe replaces the dropped vowel, and the elided form attaches directly to the next word with no space.

This is one of the most-visible orthographic features of French and one of the simplest rules to internalize, because the alternative — pronouncing two adjacent vowels — sounds wrong to French ears. The phonology drives the spelling, not the other way around. This page covers when elision applies, when it doesn't, and the trickier h aspiré exceptions that English speakers stumble over.

What elides, what doesn't

Of the seven direct object pronouns, only four can elide:

Pronoun	Elides to	Before
me	m'	vowel or h muet
te	t'	vowel or h muet
le	l'	vowel or h muet
la	l'	vowel or h muet
nous	(no elision)	—
vous	(no elision)	—
les	(no elision)	—

Nous, vous, les end in consonants (well, les ends in s, which is silent in isolation but triggers liaison). They don't elide — they keep their full form. But les and nous and vous do trigger liaison with the following vowel: les amis /lez‿ami/, nous avons /nuz‿avɔ̃/. Liaison is a phonological linking, not an elision — there's no apostrophe and no dropped letter.

The pronouns that elide all end in -e or -a — vowels that French refuses to leave hanging next to another vowel. The rule is: vowel + vowel = collision = drop the first one and replace with apostrophe.

Le and la before a vowel: l'

This is the highest-frequency case. Whenever you have le or la in front of a verb starting with a vowel sound, it must elide.

*(le → l' before ai)* *(le → l' before aimes)* *(la → l' before ai)* *(la → l' before écoute)*

A consequence of this elision: when you see l' before a verb in writing, you can't tell from the form alone whether it's le (masculine) or la (feminine). The reference is recovered from context. Je l'ai vu could be "I saw him" or "I saw her", and if a previously mentioned antecedent is feminine (Marie), the participle agreement gives it away (je l'ai vue, with the -e). In speech, the agreement is often inaudible, and only the broader context resolves the ambiguity.

Me and te before a vowel: m', t'

Same rule for the first and second person singular pronouns.

*(me → m' before écoutes)* *(te → t' before aime)* *(me → m' before a)* *(te → t' before appelle)*

A subtle pattern to notice: many of the most-used French verbs begin with vowels — aimer, appeler, attendre, écouter, entendre, écrire, inviter, oublier, observer, ouvrir, ajouter, attraper, étudier, examiner. So elision is constant. You'll write m', t', l' dozens of times in any meaningful conversation.

Nous, vous, les: no elision but liaison

These three keep their full form before vowels, but liaison kicks in to link them phonetically:

*(nous + appelles, liaison /nuz‿apɛl/)* *(vous + attendez, liaison /vuz‿atɑ̃de/)* *(les + ai, liaison /lez‿e/)*

In writing, no apostrophe — the words stay separate with a space between them. In pronunciation, the s of nous, vous, les becomes audible as /z/ and links to the vowel of the next word. This is one of the most-distinctive rhythms of spoken French: liaison creates the smooth, flowing quality of native speech.

A common error is to write nous in a contraction style — nous'avons* or worse — when liaison happens. Don't. Liaison is purely phonological; the orthography keeps the two words separate.

H muet vs h aspiré: the silent-but-not-quite distinction

French has two kinds of h. They're identical in spelling — just the letter h — but they behave very differently in elision and liaison. This is an old historical distinction inherited from the language's mixed Latin and Frankish roots.

H muet (silent h) behaves as if the h weren't there. The word effectively starts with a vowel, so it triggers elision and liaison. Most French words with initial h are h muet: habiter, honorer, heure, homme, hôtel, hiver, histoire, harmonie, hésiter, humide.

H aspiré (aspirated h — though it's still silent in modern pronunciation) behaves as if the h were a consonant. It blocks elision and liaison. The word is pronounced normally, but no contraction or linking happens with the preceding word. Most h aspiré words come from Germanic or other non-Latin sources: haricot, hibou, homard, héros, honte, huit, hache, haut, haine, hurler, hisser.

There is no audible difference between an h muet and an h aspiré — both are silent in modern French. The difference is purely in how the h affects the surrounding words. You have to memorize which words are which, but luckily they're a closed list of about 250 h aspiré words, all listed in any decent dictionary (usually marked with † or *).

H muet examples

H muet words allow elision exactly like vowel-initial words.

*(le → l' before honore, h muet)* *(la → l' before habite, h muet)* *(le → l' before hébergera, h muet)* *(me → m' before as humilié, both h muet)*

You'll find h muet in habiter, héberger, hésiter, honorer, humilier, hériter, hiverner, hospitaliser, among many others — all behaving as vowel-initial verbs.

H aspiré examples

With h aspiré, elision is blocked. The pronoun stays in full form, and there's a small phonetic pause where elision would otherwise happen.

*(le stays unelided before hais; h aspiré in haïr)* *(le héros, no liaison or elision)* *(le drapeau, le hisse — h aspiré blocks elision)*

The verbs haïr (to hate), hisser (to hoist), heurter (to bump into), hurler (to yell), honnir (to scorn — archaic), and handicaper (to handicap) are the most common h aspiré verbs. Most are low-frequency, but haïr in particular is a verb you will encounter, and je le hais without elision is the correct form.

For h aspiré nouns, the same applies to articles and pronouns. Le hibou (not l'hibou), la honte (not l'honte), les héros with no liaison (/le eʁo/, not /lez‿eʁo/).

Why elision exists

French phonology is deeply allergic to hiatus — two adjacent vowel sounds within or between words. The language has spent centuries smoothing them out, either by elision (le → l'), liaison (les amis), or by adding a buffer consonant (a-t-il, va-t-on, ça-t-elle). The clitic pronouns sit in front of the verb, so they're constantly butting up against verb-initial vowels — and the language has chosen to drop the clitic vowel rather than tolerate the collision.

This is why elision is mandatory, not stylistic. Je le ai vu would create a hiatus that French phonology rejects. The only way to write the sentence is je l'ai vu. Treat the apostrophe as a mandatory part of the spelling — like a silent letter — and you'll never write a non-elided form by accident.

A note on que and ne

Although this page focuses on direct object pronouns, the same elision rule applies to que and ne before a vowel. You may already have noticed: qu'il, qu'elle, qu'on, n'a, n'est. These are governed by the same logic and behave identically.

*(que → qu' before il)* *(ne → n' before a)*

The full set of words that elide before vowels in French includes: je (j'), me (m'), te (t'), se (s'), le (l'), la (l'), de (d'), ne (n'), que (qu'), si (s' before il, ils only), and ce (c' before forms of être). Memorize the set; the apostrophe is mandatory across all of them.

Comparison with English

English has a few similar contractions — don't, can't, isn't — but they're not analogous to French elision. English contractions involve dropping a letter inside a single word (do not → don't) and are optional in writing. French elision involves dropping a letter at the boundary between two words and is mandatory.

English doesn't worry about vowel-vowel collisions across word boundaries. I am sits next to itself fine, even though both I and am start with vowels. French would never allow je ai — that's why it became j'ai. The phonological constraint is genuinely different, and it shapes a much larger swath of French orthography than English contraction does.

Mini-drill: elide or not?

Try predicting whether each of these requires elision:

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Me, te, le, la all elide to m', t', l', l' before a vowel sound or h muet.
• Nous, vous, les do not elide — they remain as full words, but trigger liaison.
• The apostrophe is mandatory in writing, not optional. Je le ai is wrong. Je l'ai is correct.
• H muet allows elision (l'habite, l'honneur, l'heure).
• H aspiré blocks elision (le hibou, la honte, le héros). H aspiré words are a closed list of about 250 — memorize the high-frequency ones (hibou, honte, haricot, héros, homard, hasard, hauteur, haine).
• The same elision rule applies to je, de, ne, que, si, ce, se — it's a general feature of French clitic words.
• French phonology rejects vowel-vowel collisions across word boundaries; elision exists to prevent them.