French word of the week: dans

Welcome back for another edition of our French word of the week blog. This time, we’re looking at the word dans. Before finding out about what it means, listen to the audio clip below to hear how to pronounce it:

It might look like you could guess the English meaning from its spelling – perhaps something to do with dancing? However, this would be a good example of a false friend! Usually, dans is translated as in, although it is a word that can be used in many different contexts and translated in different ways.

In grammar terms, dans is a preposition. If you’re not sure what this term means, we recommend reading our Easy Learning French Grammar page on how to use prepositions.

Ready to look at some examples?:

dans le coffre in the boot (of a car)

dans ma vie in my life

dans la rue in the street

marcher dans la rue to walk along the street

monter dans le bus to get on the bus

J’ai trouvé mes clés, elles étaient dans ton bureau. I found my keys, they were in your office.

« Rajan est déjà parti ? » « Non, il est dans la cuisine. » “Has Rajan already left?” “No, he’s in the kitchen.”

Nous habitons dans un appart au centre-ville. We’re living in a flat in the city centre.

aller dans le bon sens to go the right way; to go in the right direction

agir dans les règles to follow the rules; to stay within the rules

Le film va commencer dans quarante minutes. The film will start in forty minutes.

dans un instant in a moment

dans une semaine in a week

If you’re familiar with our blog, you might have already read our word of the week blog on the preposition en, which also means in. Now that you’ve seen how dans works in lots of contexts, you may want to refresh your memory on uses of en so that you don’t confuse these two words.

There is a subtle but important distinction between dans and en when used in the context of discussing time. We use both dans and en to talk about something ‘in’ a length of time, but the translations have very different meanings:

Je le ferai dans quatre jours. I’ll do it in four days. – i.e. I’ll do it in four days’ time/four days from now.

Je le ferai en quatre jours. I’ll do it in four days. – i.e. It will take me four days to do it.

Well done on getting to grips with yet another French word. Keep up the weekly learning, and you’ll be fluent in no time.

Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.

All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.