destinations

[george willms]

For cities it's "à Londres," for countries it's "au Canada (masc.), en France (fem.), aux Pays-Bas (pl.)," for Canadian provinces it's "en Saskatchewan" (fem.), "au Manitoba" (masc.), but "à Terre Neuve." I've recently learned that it's "en Californie" (fem.), but "dans le Vermont" (masc.). But for the French "départements" I still don't understand why it's "dans l'Aisne" but "en Ardèche." Is there a rule?

[Neil Coffey]

Hi George --

To a large extent, what you've hit on here is a combination variation among speakers and variation over time.

The norm is generally to use en before what technically are classed as provinces. So e.g. en Touraine, en Picardie, en Bretagne etc.

With the names of departments, both uses with en and dans exist: you can basically say either dans l'Aisne or en Aisne; dans le Loir-et-Cher or en Loir-et-Cher etc. Some authors have advocated certain patterns, e.g. that en is used with department names coordinated with 'et'. It's not clear that usage bears this out in all cases.

Usage has also changed over time. If you look at Google Ngram statistics for e.g. en Ardèche vs dans l'Ardèche, you see that until around 1900, the use with en was rare, but that it has overtaken the use with dans since around 1970.

Or for practical purposes: if you're faced with the name of a French place that you know is not a town, then it's probably a safe bet to use en, but don't be surprised if you also see dans being used.

[george willms]

Thanks, Neil!

[george willms]

Thanks again! Filed it this time!