What this is
Two jobs in one concept, because they answer the same question — où ?
The first is chez, a preposition English simply does not have. It means at the home of or at the premises of, and it is the reason French can say in one word what English needs an apostrophe-s for: chez le médecin, at the doctor’s.
The second is the ordinary business of putting things in space: on, under, in front of, behind, near, next to, between. Most of these are single words that behave themselves. Three of them — près de, à côté de, loin de — end in de, which means the contraction rule from two concepts ago fires all over again.
The rule
chez takes a person. A name, a stressed pronoun, a profession, a family:
| chez Marie | at Marie’s |
| chez moi / toi / lui / elle | at my / your / his / her place |
| chez nous / vous / eux | at our / your / their place |
| chez le médecin | at the doctor’s |
| chez mes parents | at my parents’ |
Position prepositions. The first group attaches straight to its noun:
| Preposition | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| dans | in, inside | dans la chambre |
| sur | on, on top of | sur la table |
| sous | under | sous le lit |
| devant | in front of | devant la maison |
| derrière | behind | derrière l’école |
| entre | between | entre la gare et le musée |
The second group needs de to reach its noun — and de then behaves exactly as it always does:
| Before le | Before les | Before la / l’ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| près de | près du parc | près des maisons | près de la gare |
| à côté de | à côté du marché | à côté des voitures | à côté **de l’**école |
| loin de | loin du quartier | loin des magasins | loin de la ville |
Why it works this way
Chez comes from Latin casa, “house”. That is not a curiosity — it is the rule. The word still carries “house” inside it, which is why it demands a person (whose house it is) and refuses a building (which does not own a house; it is one). Chez l’hôpital fails for the same reason at the hospital’s house fails in English.
The de group makes sense the moment you read the words literally. À côté means at the side. A side of what? You need de to say. Près means near; near what? Same answer. These are not really prepositions at all — they are adverbs plus a linker, and the linker is an ordinary de with ordinary contraction behavior.
Devant and derrière look like they should need de too, and historically they contained one — de-avant, de-riere. The de is already baked into the word, which is exactly why you must not add a second one.
Edge cases
chez takes a person, never a building
Chez le médecin — correct, the doctor is a person. Chez l’hôpital — wrong, a hospital is not. When the destination is a building, you are back to à: à l’hôpital, au restaurant, à la piscine.
The test is simple: could this thing own a house? If yes, chez. If no, à.
Businesses named after their founder take chez because the name is still a person: chez Renault, chez Carrefour. So does the generic chez le coiffeur, chez le dentiste, chez le boulanger — the shop is named by its occupant.
The pronoun after chez is the stressed form
You already met these in c’est moi and avec toi. Every preposition takes them:
moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles
Chez moi, chez lui, chez eux. Not chez je, not chez il, not chez ils — those forms exist only as subjects, and after a preposition there is no subject slot to fill.
Note that nous, vous and elle look identical in both sets. That is a coincidence of form, not evidence that the subject pronouns work here.
The de group contracts, every time
This is where learners who have already mastered au and du still slip, because the de is buried at the end of a long preposition and stops looking like a de.
À côté de le marché is wrong in exactly the way à le marché is wrong. It must be à côté du marché. Same for près des maisons, loin du quartier. The rule does not care how far into the phrase the de sits.
What English speakers get wrong here
Adding a de to devant and derrière. English says in front of, and the of wants to become a de. It must not. Devant la maison, not devant de la maison.
Using dans where sur belongs. Dans le bus and sur le bus are both grammatical and mean very different things — inside it, versus on the roof. English on the bus means inside, so this one is worth watching.
Translating at home word by word. À maison is not French. Depending on who lives there, it is chez moi, chez toi, chez elle, chez nous. French makes you say whose home it is.
Forgetting the contraction inside à côté de. By far the commonest error in this concept, and it survives long after the basic au/du rule feels automatic.