4 Common Verbs in French

Certain verbs in French are commonly used, not only popping up in most conversations, put in the greater part of sentences within these conversations. Try and have a conversation without the verbs avoir, être, aller, and faire. It might be a fun exercise, but it would be very difficult. The advantage of having such common verbs is that they are very versatile and those four verbs that keep popping up would mean dealing mainly with those four verb conjugations. The disadvantage is that these verb conjugations are irregular. This means that their forms deviate from the established patterns of large numbers of verbs in the language. So if you experience moments of oblivion while trying to remember these verb conjugations, there won’t be other verb patterns to guide you.

The origins of irregular verb patterns are varied, ranging from suppletion, the use of an unrelated form to complete a verb paradigm, to frequent repetition of commonly used verbs, which allows them to maintain patterns that fall out of use or adapt to more regular patterns over time. Conjugations of the verb aller, for instance, include vais, allons, and ira from the Latin verbs vadere, ambulare, and ire. The verb faire has the uncommon characteristic of having second person plural endings in many of its conjugations that do not include ez. It is the third most frequently used verb in French, according to eduscol, which is run by the Ministère de l’Éducation nationale et de la Jeunesse, and seems to have maintained its unique pattern.

Breaking Down the 4 French Verbs

1- The Verb « Avoir »

The verb avoir indicates possession and also appears in commonly used idiomatic expressions. To indicate possession, you could say j’ai un chat, ils ont trois cafés, or on a une idée. Avoir is used in expressions having to do with physical condition, such as tu as mal à la tête or il a la grippe. It is also used in idiomatic expressions having to do with hunger and thirst, state of mind, and judgment, e.g., nous avons soif, ils ont peur des arraignées, and vous avez tort. In addition, it is the auxiliary verb used for the greater part of composite tenses, including the verb être, the other auxiliary verb that is used for composite tenses in French.

a) Expressions with « Avoir »

Here are some uses of the verb avoir in everyday expressions:

Notice how all of the English equivalents use the verb to be. When learning on Glossika, you'll notice within your "Skills" list that these patterns are practiced together as stative verbs with person as experiencer.

b) Talking about Age

We can also use avoir to point out age:

c) Talking about Getting Hurt

When we talk about something physically hurting, we can use avoir mal along with a body part.

When we name the body part, we include its definite article. This is different from what is used in English, which is often a possessive adjective, e.g., j’ai mal à la hanche vs. my hip hurts. Remember that the preposition à contracts with definite articles that are plural or masculine and singular, giving us forms such as the following:

d) Avoir l’air... ...

We can use avoir l’air to express the idea of seeming a certain way. Since it can be a synonym for sembler, être, or demeurer, in some locutions it will agree with the subject of the sentence. At other times, when it expresses the idea of appearing a certain way, it will agree with air.

• Les clients ont l’air angoissés.  (angoissés ≈ les clients)

mais :

• Ces fleurs en papier ont l’air authentique.   (authentique ≈ l’air)

e) Expressions Used with Infinitives

Some expressions with avoir are used with infinitives. J’ai besoin de nettoyer le sol indicates needing to clean the floor, while j’ai envie de manger une pizza indicates a desire to eat pizza.

f) J’en ai assez !

If you’ve had enough of something, you can use another expression with avoir:

Have you had enough of studying French for the day? You can say: “J’en ai assez !”

2- The Verb « être »

The verb être is one of the most frequently, if not the most frequently used verb in French. Its meaning to be gives it the value of an equal sign and can introduce attributes, qualities, possession, as well as many types of action in the passive voice. We use it when describing people or things, e.g., elles sont comiques, ceci est drôle, and to show possession, e.g., “Ce cahier est à Charles”. We use it as an auxiliary verb in compound tenses, and notably, with pronominal verbs, e.g., vous êtes arrivées, on s’est serré la main, nous nous sommes vus.

a) The Process of Happening

Certain expressions with être involve the use of infinitives. We can use être to refer to something in the process of happening:

To emphasize the moment during which someone is watering flowers, we could say, il est en train d’arroser les fleurs. To translate this into English, we would use the present progressive tense, a tense that we do not have in French, e.g., he’s watering the flowers. If we begin with the English sentence, however, we could translate this into French either using en train de + infinitive or the present active indicative tense, depending on context.

b) Express State of Mind

We also see the verb être used in constructions such as:

This emphasizes a state of mind, a condition, or an opinion, e.g., il est content d’avoir de ses nouvelles ; c’est agréable de s’asseoir sur une terrasse.

c) Ça m’est égal

In addition to beginning certain phrases using être with the impersonal il or ce, we can also use ça. To express indifference, you can use the phrase:

d) Être + Past Participle

We may choose to use être along with a past participle form of a verb we use in pronominal constructions, but remember that there is a difference between the action and the situation that results from this action:

3- The verb « aller »

Aller is a commonly used verb that means to go. It is practical when speaking of physically moving from one place to another, e.g., l’enfant va à la boulangerie. We can also use aller to speak of an intention to do something or to express future action, e.g., nous allons manger vers 20 h, or elles vont finir leurs devoirs. The verb aller + infinitive is a tense called the futur proche.

a) How are you doing?

We can use the verb aller to talk about how we’re doing:

b) Means of Transit

We can use aller to talk about means of transit:

c) To Get away

We can talk about going away, departing, leaving, and going ahead using certain expressions involving aller:

This is considered to be an idiomatic pronominal verb, and must be conjugated as such, e.g., elles s’en sont allées.

d) Other Expressions

Other phrases with aller that you will commonly hear include:

The latter can be in reference to physical space, to let someone walk ahead of you, for instance, or in reference to speech, deferring to interlocutors by inviting them to speak before you.

We can also use the verb aller to describe things as being a good combination:

4- The Verb « faire »

The verb faire means to do or to make. It is also used in many expressions involving weather and activities. We can say nous faisons un gâteau, il fait beau, or ils font de la danse.

a) About the Weather

Faire is used in expressions describing the weather:

Your reply will include the impersonal phrase il fait... (see the second example above).

b) Describe Activities

We use the verb faire to describe activities, often involving partitive articles:

• Simone fait de la gymnastique.
• Manuel et Marielle font du ski.
• Les enfants font des galipettes.

c) Initiation of Action

We use the faire causatif to talk about initiating another action. This involves the construction faire + infinitive. This can have a subject, a direct object, or a subject and a direct object.

The third example can become ambiguous, if the context is not clear enough, as it can mean that either the children are reciting the poems or that someone else is reading poems to the children. In order to clarify, the sentence can be phrased as:

• Vous faites réciter les poèmes par les enfants.

d) Expressions with pronouns En and Y

Certain expressions with faire involve the pronouns en and y.

We could allay someone’s fears by saying: “Ne t’en fais pas si ta fille n’aime pas son nouveau cours à l’école”, to which one could respond: “En tout cas, il faudra bien qu’elle s’y fasse”.

e) Other Expressions

Other idiomatic expressions involving faire include:

With all of these uses for these four verbs in mind, you could probably have an entire conversation. Enjoy! 😎

Read more!

1. Learn How to Use French Adverbs
2. Common 'False Friends' in French that You Should Know
3. French Verbs: The Ultimate Guide to Different French Tenses
4. The Most Common Mistakes Learners Make When Learning French
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