Questions & Answers about Paul est de retour à la maison.
The expression être de retour is an idiomatic way to say “to be back”.
- Paul est de retour à la maison. → Paul is back home. (focus on the result/state: he is now back)
- Paul revient à la maison. → Paul is coming back home. (focus on the action in progress)
- Paul est revenu à la maison. → Paul came back home / has come back home. (focus on the completed action)
So est de retour emphasizes the current state (“he is back”), which matches the English present “is back” more closely than the other two.
You must keep de here. The fixed expression is être de retour, not être retour.
- ✅ Il est de retour. – He is back.
- ❌ Il est retour. – Incorrect.
Here, retour is a noun (“return”), and French often uses de + noun after être to describe a state or role:
- être de garde – to be on duty
- être de service – to be on duty / on shift
In the same way, être de retour literally means to be in a state of return, i.e., “to be back”.
The French present tense here works like the English present in “Paul is back”: it describes a current situation.
- Paul est de retour à la maison. – Paul is back home (now).
If you used a past tense, you would change the meaning:
- Paul est revenu à la maison. – Paul came back home / has come back home. (focus on the past event)
- Paul a été de retour à la maison. – Grammatically possible, but unusual; it would sound like you’re talking about a past period when he was back.
For the normal “He is back home (now)”, the present est is exactly what you want.
Both can translate as “at home”, but the nuance is slightly different.
Paul est de retour à la maison.
- Literally: Paul is back at the house/home.
- Neutral; often used when “home” is understood from context (family home, shared home, etc.).
Paul est de retour chez lui.
- Literally: Paul is back at his place.
- Explicitly says it’s his place (not someone else’s).
In many contexts they can both translate as “Paul is back home”, but:
- Use à la maison when “home” is already clear from the situation.
- Use chez lui / chez elle / chez eux if you want to stress whose place it is.
In French, singular countable nouns almost always need an article (definite, indefinite, or possessive). So you normally say:
- à la maison – at the house / at home
- à l’école – at school
- au travail – at work
❌ à maison is not standard French.
There is a special adverb chez soi / chez moi / chez toi / etc. that means “at home”, but maison itself, used as a noun with à, needs the article:
- ✅ Je suis à la maison. – I am at home.
- ✅ Je suis chez moi. – I am at home.
- ❌ Je suis à maison. – Incorrect.
Not necessarily, but often yes, from context.
À la maison literally means “at the house/home”. Depending on the context it can mean:
- the house where Paul lives (most common understanding)
- the house that the speaker and Paul share (family home, shared flat, etc.)
- a particular house already known in the conversation (e.g., a rented house on holiday)
If you need to be explicit that it is Paul’s personal home, chez lui makes that completely clear:
- Paul est de retour chez lui. – Paul is back at his (own) place.
Yes, if the context already makes it clear where he is back.
- Paul est de retour. – Paul is back.
This is very common in conversation when the place is understood:
- Someone walks in the office after a trip → Paul est de retour ! – “Paul is back!”
- Talking about someone returning to town, school, work, etc., when that place is already known.
Adding à la maison simply specifies that the place he is back to is home.
The natural word order is:
Subject + être + de retour + place
So:
- ✅ Paul est de retour à la maison.
The expression de retour stays directly after être; you don’t split it and put part before and part after à la maison.
- ❌ Paul est à la maison de retour. – Sounds wrong in French.
You could move à la maison for special emphasis, but that’s stylistic and less common:
- À la maison, Paul est de retour. – “At home, Paul is back.” (emphasis on at home)
For normal usage, keep the original order.
With être de retour, the expression does not change for gender or number:
- Marie est de retour à la maison. – Mary is back home.
- Les enfants sont de retour à la maison. – The children are back home.
The verb être itself changes (est / sont), but de retour stays the same for everyone.
What would change with gender and number is a past participle in other constructions:
- Marie est rentrée à la maison. – Marie came back home. (rentrée agrees feminine singular)
- Les enfants sont rentrés à la maison. – The children came back home. (rentrés agrees masculine/mixed plural)
But with être de retour, there’s no agreement issue.
They focus on different things:
Paul est de retour à la maison.
- Paul is back home.
- Focus: result/state – he is already there now.
Paul retourne à la maison.
- Paul is going back home / Paul goes back home.
- Focus: the movement/action – he is on his way or repeatedly goes back.
So if he has already arrived and you are describing the current situation, est de retour is more natural. If you want to say that he is in the process of going back (or does so regularly), use retourner.
Negative:
Insert ne … pas around the verb être:
- Paul n’est pas de retour à la maison.
→ Paul is not back home.
Yes/No question:
- With est-ce que (very common, neutral):
- Est-ce que Paul est de retour à la maison ?
→ Is Paul back home?
- With inversion (more formal/written):
- Paul est-il de retour à la maison ?
→ Is Paul back home?
In spoken French, Est-ce que Paul est de retour à la maison ? is probably the most typical.
No. Retour in French is a noun (“return”). It cannot be used as a verb.
To express the idea of “to return / to go back”, French uses other verbs:
- revenir – to come back
- retourner – to go back (often to a different place than the speaker’s current location)
- rentrer – to go back (home or to one’s base)
So you have these options:
- Paul est de retour à la maison. – Paul is back home.
- Paul revient à la maison. – Paul is coming back home.
- Paul retourne à la maison. – Paul is going back home.
- Paul rentre à la maison. – Paul is going back home (to his place).
In standard French, a careful pronunciation would be approximately:
- Paul – /pɔl/
- est – /ɛ/ or /e/ (often very short)
- de – /də/ (the e may be very weak or even dropped in fast speech)
- retour – /ʁətuʁ/
- à la – /ala/
- maison – /mɛzɔ̃/ (nasal vowel at the end: -on = /ɔ̃/)
Spoken smoothly, you might hear something like:
/pɔl ɛ də ʁətuʁ ala mɛzɔ̃/
There are no obligatory liaisons in this sentence, and French speakers will usually pronounce it fairly fluidly without strong pauses between the words.