Lesson 6: Avoir and Être

Look at you. Face aglow. With just a few short study sessions, you've learned how to conjugate the vast majority of verbs in the present tense. Your confidence is on the rise. "This conjugation thing isn't so hard," you say. "I'm ready for more! I want to conjugate in the past and in the future!"

Well, pump the brakes, tiger, because we're going to have to stay in the present for a bit.

(See what we did there? Like staying in the present moment…but also referring to the present tense. Do you get it? It's a very, very funny joke… we hope you got it.)

Here's the deal: not every French verb follows the tidy patterns you've just learned. Irregular verbs go their own way, so their forms have to be learned separately. They make up a minority of all French verbs—but many of the most common verbs in the language are irregular, so learning them will sharpen your French fast.

We'll start with the two most essential irregulars of all:

• avoir—to have
• être—to be

Both are extremely common, highly irregular, and essential for expressing basic ideas in French. Let's learn their present-tense forms and their most important uses.

Avoir is used to talk about what someone has, someone's age, and several common expressions. Here are its present tense conjugations:

As you learned in the pronoun lesson, je becomes j' before a vowel sound, so je + ai becomes j'ai.

Possession

The most direct meaning of avoir is "to have":

Age

French uses avoir, rather than être, to express age:

Common Expressions with Avoir

French also uses avoir in several common expressions that use "to be" in English:

These are best learned as complete French expressions rather than translated word by word. Here they are in context:

Listen for the Liaison

Because several forms of avoir begin with a vowel sound, you'll often hear a liaison. The normally silent final s of the subject pronoun is pronounced like a z and connects to the verb:

• nous avons → "nooz-ah-von"
• vous avez → "vooz-ah-vay"
• ils ont → "eelz-on"

You'll hear the same pattern with other verbs beginning with a vowel sound, such as ils arrivent.

Être is used to talk about who or what someone is, descriptions and states, and location. Here are its present tense conjugations:

Identity

Use être to identify someone or say what someone is:

Descriptions and States

Use être to describe what someone or something is like or how they are:

Location

Use être to say where someone or something is:

Listen Closely: Es and Est

Es and est are spelled differently, but both are pronounced like "eh." The final s in es and t in est are silent:

With vous êtes, however, the normally silent s in vous forms a liaison with the vowel sound at the beginning of êtes. It is pronounced like z:

• vous êtes → "vooz-ett"

French has just one verb for "to be": être covers all of its general roles.

However, French also expresses some ideas with avoir that use "to be" in English. As you saw above, this includes age and common expressions such as hunger, thirst, and fear.

Here are the main uses of each verb:

Notice how English uses "to be" in all of these sentences, but French switches between être and avoir:

As you saw with avoir, some French expressions are structured differently from their English equivalents. Learning phrases such as avoir faim, avoir peur, and avoir vingt ans as complete expressions will help you choose the right verb naturally.