coddyfishboi

[viscid thistle]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[ripe thunder]

For this example we will use a famous piece of French graffiti in Paris

"Here we drown algeriens"

Now, why is this "on" and not "nous?" Well, "on" is drowning the algerians because it's "we as a people" and not "we, a specific number of people and myself"

So on is used when it's a nonspecific we

Like "Discord users, we have no lives"

On n'a pas de vies

it's "we as a wide group of people" rather than "this person, this person, and me"

That's the most common reason for using "on" instead of "nous"

[weary grail]

so on would include lots of people

and it would include myself

[ripe thunder]

Yes

You would say "nous" when you have a specific list of people in mind

"Ma famille et moi," par exemple

[weary grail]

so it would be nous

[ripe thunder]

Yes

[weary grail]

oh okk i was so confused

thank you

[ripe thunder]

So "We, the people" is "on" and "Me and some other people, whom I have in mind specifically" is "nous"

some native speakers will use "on" in broader cases, though, partly just because the conjugation is easier

[brave cipher]

"on" has all but replaced "nous" outside of very formal situations, like an interview

"nous" does (almost always) refer to a specific group including the speaker
"on" does not have to include the speaker, and often does not.

but like I said, "on" is used in almost every context where you would normally use "nous". On an essay/schoolwork or during an interview, stick to nous, but in anything less formal than that it's "on"

"on" comes from "l'homme" - man, and fills a similar role as english "one", generic "you" (not referring to any one speaker), or an unknown/unspecified third party (they, someone, [passive construction]), beyond the "nous" meaning

[ripe thunder]

Yeah. Apologies for the confusion, I was not saying that "on" can't be used to mean that, I was just focusing on the distinction between using "on" for "we" vs "nous" as I understood it

[cunning tundra]

yeah but in the vast majority of cases, « on » hass replaced « nous » as a subject pronoun

important detail since it's still used as an object pronoun and a tonic pronoun

so you can get cases like, « Nous, on est parti ! (We have left!) »

(repeating the subject is a very common way to put emphasis)