On veut simplement s'assurer que le gouvernement comprenne notre mécontentement

Question

I always understood that if you use 'on' that you had to match it with 'son mécontentement 'ie. 'On' with 'son' and 'nous' with 'notre'Can anyone clarify ?

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Pamela,
You're right that there's a nuance between "on" and "nous". It's a common point of confusion for French learners.
In French, grammatically speaking, "on" is a third-person singular pronoun, but it's very often used in spoken French to mean "we", as an informal substitute for "nous".
Now, if you're using "on" as meaning "people" or "one", then you would indeed use the possessive adjective "son":
On doit écouter son cœur = One must listen to one's heart
But, if "on" is used in place of "nous", then "notre" is the correct possessive adjective to be used:

On doit finir notre travail avant demain = We have to finish our work before tomorrow
On aime passer du temps avec notre famille = We love spending time with our family

Take a look at this answer from Cécile, one of our French Kwiziq experts, for more examples:
Possessive pronoun for on
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Jim Jones · Answer

Bonjour Pamela,On the face of it, I agree with your point.However, I have the sense that this apparent poor grammar is a stylistic feature that seeks to reinforce the masses' feelings (outrage). This is not used initially with "on" in a more general sense.Otherwise I will be interested to read a staff expert's comments.Bonne journéeJim