Inside and Outside

By Daniel Lupo

The preposition dans can mean "in," "inside," or "into," depending on context. For example, elle est dans la maison could either be "she is in the house" or "she is inside the house," and elle va dans la maison could be "she goes inside the house" or "she goes into the house." In this lesson, we'll focus on "inside" (and its opposite, "outside"), which has a few other translations besides dans.

The first is dedans. Unlike dans, which is a preposition, dedans usually functions as an adverb. It can either mean "inside" or "indoors":

Là y'a nouveau jeu. Ils doivent deviner combien il y a de bonbons dedans.

There's a new game. They have to guess how many candies there are inside.

Caption 49, Actu Vingtième - Fête du quartier Python-Duvernois
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Je n'aime pas rester dedans toute la journée.
I don't like staying indoors all day.

Like "inside," dedans can also be used as a noun:

Le dedans de l'église est très sombre.
The inside of the church is very dark.

We could also say l'intérieur de l'église est très sombre (the interior of the church is very dark), or simply il fait très sombre dans l'église (it's very dark inside the church). In fact, l'intérieur is the other word for "inside" in French. You'll often see it in the phrase à l'intérieur (de), which can also mean "within":

Maintenant, on va la laisser reposer

Now we are going to let it rest

pour que les levures à l'intérieur puissent permettre à notre pâte d'être aérée.

so that the yeast inside can allow our dough to be airy.

Captions 32-33, Alsace 20 - Grain de Sel: le Lycée hôtelier Alexandre Dumas
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Alors des maisons, c'est très rare d'en trouver, euh...

So [standalone] houses, it's very rare to find them, uh...

à l'intérieur de Paris, je vous le promets.

within Paris, I promise you.

Captions 19-20, Antoine - La Butte-aux-Cailles
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We could easily rewrite these two examples using dedans and dans: les levures dedans (the yeast inside), en trouver dans Paris (find them in Paris).

Now let's move "outside." Though French has a general word for "in" (dans), it doesn't have one for "out." However, dedans and à l'intérieur (de) do have direct opposites: dehors and à l'extérieur (de).

Dehors functions in the exact same way as dedans, as an adverb or noun:

Dois-je payer pour ce qu'ils font dehors?

Should I pay for what they do outside?

Caption 20, Alain Etoundi - Allez tous vous faire enfilmer!
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Le dehors de la maison est plus joli que le dedans.
The outside of the house is nicer than the inside.

There's also the phrase en dehors de, which means "outside of" in both a literal and figurative sense:

Parce qu'il y a énormément de personnes qui vont travailler en dehors de Paris.

Because there are so many people who go to work outside of Paris.

Captions 47-48, Adrien - Le métro parisien
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En dehors de ça, je ne vois aucune autre solution.
Outside of that, I don't see any other solution.

Sometimes you'll see hors de rather than dehors de:

J'aurais du mal à vivre hors de Paris maintenant.

I'd have trouble living outside of Paris now.

Captions 38-39, Elisa et sa maman - Comment vas-tu?
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But hors (de) usually means "outside" figuratively, along the lines of "beyond," "without," or "excluding":

C'est hors de question!
That's out of the question!

Le loyer est de 600 euros hors charges.
The rent is 600 euros excluding utilities.

Finally, there's à l'extérieur, the opposite of à l'intérieur:

Ce quartier-là, à l'extérieur, il a quand même une certaine réputation...

This neighborhood, on the outside, it has a certain reputation, nevertheless...

Caption 52, Actus Quartier - Fête de quartier Python-Duvernois
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Ça m'a permis d'aller travailler à l'extérieur de ce pays.

It's allowed me to work outside of this country.

Caption 24, Annie Chartrand - Grandir bilingue
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