In French, there are a lot of prepositions of place: basic ones such as dans, sur, derrière etc and prepositional phrases of place.
How to use prepositional phrases of place in French
Look at these sentences:
The following prepositions are used to indicate relative physical positions of one thing to another.
Note that the indefinite article de must contract if followed by a masculine article le (du) and the plural les (des).
à côté de | next to |
en face de | opposite |
à l'extérieur de en dehors de |
outside |
à l'intérieur de | inside |
près de | close to / near |
loin de | far from |
au coin de | by / at the corner of |
Case of à l'extérieur de versus en dehors de:
- À l'extérieur de means outside in a geographical way, literally out of [something]
- En dehors de is more the abstract outside, in the sense of apart from, but can also be used with locations.
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