Tout, tous, toute, toutes

Unité GR-13 · campagne 9 · quatre formes écrites, deux sons, un piège de s.

Russian весь / вся / всё / все agrees with its noun, and French tout does exactly the same — the difficulty is not the idea but the spelling-to-sound mapping, because two of the four written forms are inaudible twins.

Read the sound column carefully: as a determiner, tout and tous both sound [tu], toute and toutes both sound [tut]. The ear cannot pick the number — only the article that follows can (le/les, la/les), the same "determiner carries the information" logic as unit GR-42.

The one place the s wakes up: when tous is a pronoun, standing on its own for the whole group, it is pronounced [tus]:

• Mes amis ? Ils sont tous venus. — [tus], the s is loud.
• Je tous les connais is impossible; as a pronoun it follows the verb: je les connais tous [tus].

Fixed expressions do most of the daily work, and each locks in one form: tout le temps (all the time), toute la journée (all day long), tous les jours (every day), toutes les semaines (every week). Learn them as four-word blocks — they cover the overwhelming majority of real usage, and each block is an agreement example you can trust.

The practice mixes the four determiner forms with the pronoun use, so you decide each time: which gender, which number — and would the s be heard?

Going further

Minimal pairs. One change between the two sentences, and what it does:

The errors to watch.

From Russian and English. The Russian map holds: весь день = toute la journée, все = tous / toutes, всё (everything) = tout. The adverb tout = совсем (tout petit = совсем маленький) is the one Russian gives no warning about, because совсем never changes and tout sometimes does.

The complete rule. Determiner: tout, toute, tous, toutes agree with the noun. Pronoun: tout (everything, singular), tous [tus] and toutes [tut]. Adverb (= completely): invariable — tout petits, tout entière, tout heureuse — except before a feminine adjective beginning with a consonant or an h aspiré, where it agrees for the sound: toute petite, toutes contentes, toute honteuse (a 1976 tolerance also accepts toute heureuse). In the feminine plural the form is ambiguous: elles sont toutes contentes means all happy or completely happy.

Tout as a determiner sits in the family table on Qu'est-ce qu'un déterminant ? Le sens de chaque famille.

Loading the exercise...

Checking your progress...