Demonstrative adjectives — the French equivalent of English 'this/that/these/those' — point to a specific noun, and like all French adjectives, they must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. There are four forms: ce (masculine singular, before a consonant sound: ce livre), cet (masculine singular, before a vowel sound or mute h, purely for smoother pronunciation: cet ordinateur, cet homme), cette (feminine singular, for both consonant and vowel starts: cette pomme, cette amie), and ces (plural, either gender: ces livres, ces pommes). Unlike English, French does not have separate words for 'this' versus 'that' in the base form — ce/cette/ces cover both meanings, and the distinction is usually left to context.
When you do need to explicitly distinguish 'this' from 'that' (or 'these' from 'those'), French adds a suffix directly onto the noun: -ci for nearness ('this, here') and -là for distance ('that, over there'). So 'ce livre-ci' means 'this book (here, close to me)' and 'ce livre-là' means 'that book (over there, farther away)'. In everyday speech, though, French speakers very often just say 'ce livre' and let context or a pointing gesture clarify which one they mean, without bothering with -ci/-là at all — so don't over-rely on the suffixes if the meaning is already clear from context.
Remember that cet (the special vowel-triggered masculine form) is chosen based purely on the sound that immediately follows, not on any underlying logic about the word itself — it exists only to avoid an awkward consonant-vowel clash in pronunciation, exactly like the reasoning behind le/la becoming l'. This means a masculine noun can take either ce or cet depending entirely on its first sound: ce garçon (boy, starts with a consonant sound) but cet enfant (child, starts with a vowel sound), even though both are grammatically masculine singular nouns.
Exemples
Ce pull est très joli.
This/that sweater is very nice.
Masculine singular 'ce' before a consonant sound.
Cet imperméable coûte trop cher.
This/that raincoat costs too much.
'Cet', not 'ce', because 'imperméable' starts with a vowel sound.
Cette veste te va très bien.
This/that jacket looks great on you.
Feminine singular 'cette'.
Ces chaussures sont en solde.
These/those shoes are on sale.
'Ces' covers both masculine and feminine plural.
Je préfère ce sac-ci à ce sac-là.
I prefer this bag (here) to that bag (there).
-ci/-là suffixes used together to explicitly contrast near vs. far.
Cet homme cherche une nouvelle montre.
This/that man is looking for a new watch.
'Cet' before 'homme' — the mute h counts as a vowel start.
Combien coûte cette robe ?
How much does this/that dress cost?
Ces gants sont trop petits pour moi.
These/those gloves are too small for me.
Je voudrais essayer ce manteau, s'il vous plaît.
I would like to try on this coat, please.
Cette écharpe-là est plus belle que cette écharpe-ci.
That scarf (over there) is prettier than this scarf (here).
Contrasting -là and -ci on the same noun, repeated for clarity.
Erreurs fréquentes
- Using 'ce' before a masculine noun that starts with a vowel sound instead of switching to 'cet' (saying 'ce imperméable' instead of the correct 'cet imperméable').
- Trying to force a strict this/that distinction every time by overusing -ci and -là, when plain ce/cette/ces without a suffix is the natural default in most everyday contexts.
- Using 'cette' for a masculine noun or 'ce'/'cet' for a feminine noun by not tracking the noun's grammatical gender carefully.
- Forgetting that 'ces' covers both masculine and feminine in the plural, and mistakenly trying to invent a separate feminine plural form.
Pourquoi ça trompe les anglophones
- English 'this/that/these/those' inherently encode both distance (this vs. that) and number (this vs. these) in the word itself, while French ce/cette/ces primarily encode gender and number, leaving distance to an optional suffix — a very different way of dividing up the same meaning.
- The vowel-triggered swap from 'ce' to 'cet' depends on pronunciation, not grammar, which is a category of rule (sound-based spelling change) that doesn't really exist in English demonstratives.
- Because French collapses 'this' and 'that' into the same base word, English speakers often instinctively hunt for two separate words the way their native language provides, and are unsure when the -ci/-là suffixes are actually necessary versus optional.