Where are we going...?

To make je vais..., tu vas... etc into a complete sentnce, we need to add a phrase to say where the person in question is going (in the words of the dictionary entry, the "destination"). The dictionary entry actually includes some examples of how to do this, but we'll look in more detail at how to do this. Essentially, we have two problems:

• we need to choose the right French word for "to";
• we might need to translate the name of the place.

Which word we use for "to" depends on the type of place (name of a town/city, name of a country, name of a place where an activity is carried out such as a bank, shop etc).

going to a town/city

This is often the easiest case. The French word for "to" is almost always à when followed by the name of a town or city. For example:

je vais à Leeds
I'm going to Leeds
elle va à Manchester
she's going to Manchester

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A slight difficulty is that a few towns and cities have French names that are different from English, particularly capital cities:

ils vont à Londres
They're going to London
nous allons à Bruxelles
We're going to Brussells
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There are also a few towns that have the word Le "built in" to the start of the name, e.g. Le Havre, Le Mans. In this case, Le becomes au (because in general in French, à + le = au):

Il va au Mans
He's going to Le Mans
Suggest a change / proposez une modification

going to a country

Before a country name, "to" is usually translated as follows:

• en with a feminine country or masculine country starting with a consonant (practically all countries ending in -e¹);
• au with a masculine country (most other countries);
• aux with a plural country (e.g. États-Unis);
• à with a country that is also an island (e.g. Cuba).

For example:

Masculine	Feminine	Plural	Island
je vais au Canada I'm going to Canada	je vais en Angleterre I'm going to England	je vais aux États-Unis I'm going to the US	je vais à Cuba I'm going to Cuba
il va au Mexique he's going to Mexico	il va en France he's going to France	il va aux Pays-Bas he's going to the Netherlands	il va à Malte he's going to Malta
elle va au Royaume-Uni she's going to the UK	elle va en Italie she's going to Italy	elle va aux Philippines she's going to the Philippines	elle va à Chypre she's going to Cyprus

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