French grammar - Possession in nouns

In English we tack 's onto the end of a name or a noun to say that something belongs to that person or object.

The equivalent in French is the little word de (of). For example:

Catherine's skirt: la jupe de Catherine

Note that this literally translates to "The skirt of Catherine."

As you'd probably expect, when you put de in front of a vowel, it contracts into d':

Antoine's shirt: la chemise d'Antoine

When the object belongs to a group of people, the de turns into a des. Notice that the s sound in des is silent:

The parents' bedroom: la chambre des parents

But it's not so silent when you put the des in front of a vowel. Here it turns into something like a Z sound to make pronunciation less awkward:

The children's bedroom: la chambre des enfants

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