Contractions

Two ways to combine and shrink French words

Mar 08, 2026

A contraction is a combination of two words into a shorter form.✂️ There are two different ways to make contractions in French:

1. Like English, French has contractions where a letter is replaced by an apostrophe, but unlike in English, these contractions (called élisions) are not optional. ⚠️

2. French also has contractions where two words combine into one, with no apostrophe and sometimes with a non-obvious new spelling. Again, these are required. 🤔

Today’s issue of Lawless French à fond takes an in-depth look at the different kinds of French contractions.

Table of Contents

Lessons

Élisions

Required contractions like j’ai work similarly to ones like I’ve, except in French the dropped letter is always at the end of the first word, rather than somewhere in the second word as in English.

Contractions

Formes contractées are two words combined into a single new word. The most common and important of these consist of a preposition (à or de) plus definite article or lequel.

Informal contractions 𐦂𖨆𐀪𖠋

In informal French, je and tu are commonly contracted in non-standard ways. Unlike the above, these contractions are optional - in fact, in formal situations, they are verboten.