Prepositions in French: Avoiding Common Mistakes in TEF/TCF Writing

Introduction: The "Small" Words with Big Impact

In French, prepositions like à, de, en, pour, par, avec are often the most misunderstood part of the language. They are short, but they are the glue of your sentences.

A common mistake among English speakers is to directly translate English prepositions into French (e.g., saying "Je vais à France" instead of "Je vais en France"). In the Writing section of the TEF or TCF, these errors are marked as "Syntax and Grammatical Inaccuracies."

In this guide, we’ll clear the confusion around the most common prepositional pitfalls.