No. 85 in French
au
"Au" is the contraction of "à" (to, at) and "le" (the) in French, meaning "to the" or "at the."
In a sentence
Je vais au parc.
I am going to the park.
In this sentence, 'au' is a contraction of 'à le', which means 'to the'. It is used because 'parc' is a masculine singular noun and requires the preposition 'à' to indicate movement towards it.
Il travaille au bureau.
He works at the office.
Here, 'au' is used as a contraction of 'à le', indicating location. The noun 'bureau' is masculine singular, which determines the use of 'au'.
Au printemps, les fleurs fleurissent.
In spring, the flowers bloom.
In this context, 'au' is a contraction of 'à le' and is used to express 'in the' with a masculine singular noun representing a season.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “au” in actual French podcasts.
Find “au” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays French podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into français, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
French books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).