Action Words in French: Common Verbs

Think about everything you have done today. You woke up, you ate, you walked somewhere. All of those doing or being words are called verbs. Every language has verbs — they are the engine of a sentence! Here is a challenge: in English, what verb links these three things? A dog, a baby, and a pop star all do it when they are happy. (Answer: they all smile — or sing!) Now, what if you wanted to say these action words in French? That is exactly what we are going to find out today.

A verb is a word that describes an action (like run or eat) or a state (like be or have). In French, verbs in their base form — called the infinitive — usually end in -er, -ir, or -re. Here are eight very common French verbs you will use all the time: • être (pronounced: EH-truh) — to be • avoir (AV-wahr) — to have • aller (al-AY) — to go • faire (FAIR) — to do / to make • manger (mahn-ZHAY) — to eat • parler (par-LAY) — to speak / to talk • jouer (zhoo-AY) — to play • voir (VWAHR) — to see Notice that six of them end in -er. That is the most common verb ending in French. Let us look at how these verbs appear in simple sentences: • Je mange une pomme. — I eat an apple. • Tu joues au football. — You play football. • Il fait ses devoirs. — He does his homework. In these sentences, the verb has changed its ending slightly to match the person doing the action. The base form (infinitive) is like the word in a dictionary — manger, jouer, faire. When you use it in a sentence, the ending can change, but you will still recognise the root word.