Log inSign up

La maison est au bord de la mer.

La maison est au bord de la mer.
The house is by the sea.
From Lesson 93:The preposition at someone's place (chez)·French

Breakdown of La maison est au bord de la mer.

la maison
the house
la mer
the sea
au bord de
at the edge of, beside

Questions & Answers about La maison est au bord de la mer.

Since the current lesson is about chez, why does this sentence use la maison instead?
Chez is a preposition used with a person or pronoun to mean 'at the home of' (like chez Marie or chez moi). Because this sentence is describing the physical building itself rather than saying an event is happening 'at someone's house', we use the regular noun la maison.
What exactly does au bord de mean in this context?
It literally translates to 'at the edge of' or 'at the border of'. In French, au bord de is the standard, most natural phrase used to say that a location is 'by', 'beside', or 'on the coast of' a body of water like la mer (the sea).
Why is it au bord instead of à le bord?
The word bord (edge) is masculine. In French, whenever the preposition à (at/to) is followed by the masculine word for 'the' (le), they are never left separate. They must combine into the single word au.
Later in the sentence, why doesn't de la contract into a single word like au did?
Contractions with the prepositions à and de only happen when they meet the masculine le or the plural les. Because mer (sea) is a feminine noun, it takes la. The combination de la always stays as two separate words.

Learn La maison est au bord de la mer 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
Start learning French →