Questions & Answers about Le fils de mon oncle est mon cousin.
Why does it say Le fils de mon oncle instead of using an apostrophe 's' for 'my uncle's son'?
In French, you can never use an apostrophe 's' to show ownership. Instead, you use the word de (of) and switch the order of the words. So, 'my uncle's son' becomes le fils de mon oncle (literally: the son of my uncle). Why do we use mon for both oncle and cousin?
In French, possessive adjectives like 'my' must match the gender and number of the noun they describe. Oncle (uncle) and cousin (male cousin) are both masculine and singular, so they both use the masculine singular word for 'my', which is mon. If I wanted to say 'my aunt's daughter,' would I still use mon?
No, because 'aunt' (tante) and 'daughter' (fille) are both feminine words. You would switch to the feminine singular word for 'my', which is ma. The sentence would change to: La fille de ma tante est ma cousine. How do you pronounce the word fils?
The word fils (son) is a fun exception in French pronunciation! The l is completely silent, but you actually do pronounce the s at the end. It sounds very close to the English word 'fleece' without the 'l'. What verb is est from again?
Est means 'is'. It is the 'he/she/it' form of the extremely common verb être (to be). Learn Le fils de mon oncle est mon cousin and more in French
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free