Demonstrative Pronouns: celui, celle, ceux, celles
Demonstrative Pronouns: celui, celle, ceux, celles
English has one all-purpose placeholder word for 'this/that as a standalone thing' — 'one' — used the same way no matter what it stands in for ('this one', 'that one', 'the ones'). French demonstrative pronouns instead come in four different shapes that must agree in gender and number with the noun they replace, and unlike English 'one', they can never stand completely alone — they always need a suffix (-ci/-là) or a following de/qui/que to complete them.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
The four forms agree with the noun being replaced
J'aime ce livre-ci, mais je préfère celui-là.
I like this book, but I prefer that one.
celui (masc. sg.), celle (fem. sg.), ceux (masc. pl.), celles (fem. pl.) each replace a specific noun and must match its gender and number — celui here stands for livre (masculine), so it's celui, not celle. English 'one/ones' never changes shape for gender at all, so this four-way split is a genuinely new bit of bookkeeping to track, not a mapping from an existing English habit.
-ci and -là mark 'this one' vs. 'that one'
Quelle robe préfères-tu ? Celle-ci ou celle-là ?
Which dress do you prefer? This one or that one?
A bare celui/celle/ceux/celles cannot stand alone as a full pronoun — it needs something attached. The most common attachment is -ci ('this one', nearer) or -là ('that one', farther), which map fairly directly onto English 'this one' / 'that one', making this particular pattern easy to pick up once you remember the pronoun can't be left bare.
celui de + noun = possession, 'that of...'
Ma voiture est plus rapide que celle de mon frère.
My car is faster than my brother's (than that of my brother).
Instead of celui-ci/celui-là, the pronoun can be followed by de + a noun to show possession. English handles this by simply dropping the repeated noun and adding 's ('my brother's', with 'car' understood) — French can't drop the pronoun this way; celle stands in for voiture and de mon frère supplies the owner. Word-for-word, celle de mon frère is closer to 'that-of my-brother' than to any natural English phrasing, so resist translating it literally when producing the English gloss.
celui qui / celui que + relative clause
Celui qui arrive en premier gagne.
Whoever arrives first wins. (Literally: the one who arrives first...)
celui/celle/ceux/celles can also be followed directly by a relative clause with qui or que instead of -ci/-là/de, giving the sense of 'the one(s) who/that...' or, loosely, 'whoever/whatever'. This is a compact structure English usually has to unpack into a longer phrase ('the one who...', 'whoever...') rather than a single tight pronoun+clause unit.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| celui | suh-LWEE | this one / that one (masc. sg.) |
| celle | sell | this one / that one (fem. sg.) |
| ceux | suh | these / those (masc. pl.) |
| celles | sell | these / those (fem. pl.) |
| celui-ci / celui-là | suh-LWEE-SEE / suh-LWEE-LAH | this one (here) / that one (there) |
| celui de | suh-LWEE duh | that of / the one belonging to |
| celui qui | suh-LWEE kee | the one who (subject) |
| celle que | sell kuh | the one that (object) |
| ce qui / ce que | suh kee / suh kuh | what (subject) / what (object) |