French Indefinite Pronouns – Exercises with solutions

You can click on the image to get a better overview. 

Exercises with comments

Comment:

Let’s look at the translations of these sentences:

1. Je veux faire quelque chose – I want to do something
2. Je veux faire personne – I want to do no one

Solution number 1 is obviously the correct one 🙂

Quelque chose is a very common indefinite pronoun that you can use in many different contexts. For instance:

• Tu as quelque chose à me dire?: Do you have something to tell me?

 

Comment:

This one is a bit more tricky. Both options are viable.

However, personne should be connected to ne.

• Personne ne m’a dit que vous étiez là

It’s very common to drop the ne, even if it’s informal and incorrect.

Thus, the correct answer for this exercise is quelqu’un.

• Quelqu’un m’a dit que vous étiez là: Someone told me you were there.

 

Comment:

Tout le monde is the correct answer. We’ll use tout le monde for people, and the translation is usually everyone.

Additional examples:

• Il connaît tout le monde: He knows everyone.
• Tout le monde écoute de la musique: Everyone listens to music.

But what about tout? A common translation for tout is everything. For instance:

• Tout est possible quand on y croit: Everything is possible when you believe in it.
• Tout n’est pas perdu: Everything is not lost.

 

Comment:

We have 2 answers that are almost the same.

We need to look for an antécédent – something that has been mentioned in the beginning of the sentence.

In this case, we are referring to:

• Personnes – une personne.

Personne represents a feminine noun.

Thus, we need to pick the answer quelques-unes.

There is one more detail that can give you a hint about the correct answer.

You’ll find sont venues in the end of the sentence.

The past participle (venues) is conjugated in the feminine plural form – e for feminine – and s for plural. 

 

Comment:

This exercise gives us the same problem. We need to look for the antécédent.

The past participle in the sentence joué does not give us a hint. 

However, Jouer is a masculine noun (the feminine version is une joueuse)

We are referring to the players. Therefore, we need to pick quelques-uns as our answer.

 

Comment:

Let’s translate the sentences:

1. Rien n’a répondu: Nothing answered
2. Personne n’a répondu: No one answered.

Which one makes the most sense?

I think it’s number 2. However, number 1 could probably be relevant in some kind of context 🙂

Personne has already been included in the exercises.

You should definitely learn its areas of application. In theory, it would be difficult to figure out the translation of personne on your own.

We tend to think that it can only mean person.

Two sentences with this indefinite pronoun:

• Personne ne me compred: No one understand me
• Personne ne s’y intéresse: No one cares.

 

Comment:

Let’s look at the translations:

1. As-tu trouvé la solution? J’en ai trouvé plusieurs: Did you find the solution? I found several solutions.
2. As-tu trouvé la solution? J’en ai trouvé rien: Did you find the solution? I found nothing solution… (?)

Ok, so option number 2 is grammatically incorrect, this is why I’ve added a question mark. 

The correct structure of the phrase would be: Je n‘en ai rien trouvé 

We need to add a negation (n) and insert rien before trouvé. 

The correct answer includes plusieurs. It’s a very useful indefinite pronoun.

It can be used in many different contexts. 

 

Comment:

There are different versions of autre that we can define as indefinite pronouns.

In this exercise, we can identify one important detail:

• Un test

It’s a masculine noun in the singular form.

In this case,  Un test represents un antécédant, that is,  something that happened earlier in the sentence to which we can connect un autre.

Clarification: We’ll choose un autre as it refers to un text.

Let’s rewrite the sentence and insert une autre instead:

• J’ai peint une carte, j’en faire une autre sous peu: I painted a map, I will do another one shortly.

Are you able to see the connection? 🙂

Last but not least, let’s look at one example with the third autre – d’autres:

• J’ai raté ces opportunités, mais j’en trouverai d’autres: I’ve missed this opportunity, but I will found other opportunities. 

 

Comment:

We have 2 options with the same translation.

However, chacun is the masculine version and chacune is the feminine version.

We need to analyse the sentence in order to see what we are referring to.

In the beginning of the sentence, we’re referring to mes amis. Un ami is a masculine noun. 

Thus, we’ll pick the masculine version – chacun.

We can change one small thing in the sentence if we want to use chacune instead:

• Mes amies? Chacune fait son chemin

We have only added an e to amis (une amie).

 

Comment:

We’ll pick chacun again. Why?

Because there is no information about the players in the team.

We are not referring to the feminine noun  la équipe, even if that seems to be the case.

We can change this phrase if we want to use chacune instead. We could for instance say:

• Les joueuses de cette équipe? Chacune fait sait part

 

Comment:

Let’s look at the translations of these phrases:

• On fait quelque chose de bien: We do something good
• Aucun fait tout le monde de bien: None does everyone any good

I think it’s quite obvious that number one is correct.

But, is there a difference between on and l’on? (I’ve listed them both in the image in the beginning of the article.)

Not really. But there are instances when it’s preferable to use l’on instead of on. 

Let’s look at a very common example:

• Je ne sais pas où l’on habite: I don’t know where he lives.

We would pronounce two vowels in a row without the l’.

• Je ne sais pas où on habite

You can pronounce these 2 sentences to hear the difference. I’m quite sure that you hear that the first sentence sounds more elegant. 

 

Comment:

We need to (once again ) identify the antécédent.

We’ll usually find it in the beginning of the sentence.

In this case, we’re looking for Mes parents.

Un parent is a masculine noun.

There is one more intresting detail. Eux is also included in the sentence.

Eux represents a third-person pronoun in the plural form. 

Thus, the correct answer will be aucun. 

 

Comment:

Tout est bien qui finit bien is a common expression with the translation All is well that ends well.

And yes, this is the final exercise 🙂

Let’s get back to the grammar.

In this case, tout stands alone, and we are not referring to something else in the sentence.

Grammar

In theory, many indefinite pronouns can make up their own part of a sentence. In other cases they need to refer to something else in the sentence, 

In this example, we could say that quelque chose stands alone:

• Je veux faire quelque chose

However, in other cases, the indefinite pronoun will refer to something else:

• J’ai trois problèmes, et chachun me fait pedre mon sommeil

In this example, we are referring to mes problèmes (un problème).

Do you have a question regarding the content in this article? Please leave me a comment. I enjoy answering questions as they help me to improve my French.

You can also read my article on (almost) all the French pronouns.