How do you say in French: the 100 most common verbs

How do you say in French what someone does? You use a verb, and you pick its form to match who is acting [3]. This page gives 100 everyday French verbs with their English meanings, then shows how the form changes, how to say “and” and how to say “help”. To practise the forms, see How to conjugate French verbs and French conjugation practice. For the past, see Passé composé practice.

How do you say in French what you do, with a verb?

You give the verb’s infinitive, such as parler (to speak), or a conjugated form such as je parle (I speak). The Office québécois de la langue française calls the full set of forms a verb can take its conjugation, and says the verb varies in mood, tense, person, number and aspect [3].

The infinitive is what a dictionary lists, so it is the form this page uses. This list keeps to the plain verbs.

What are the 100 most common French verbs?

This is our working list of 100 everyday verbs, grouped by what they are used for. There is no official frequency ranking behind it, and the English meanings are the usual ones, not every sense. Tap the round button to hear a verb where we have a recording.

Core verbs

Coming and going

Thinking and talking

Feelings and wishes

Daily life and work

How do you say “I do” in French, and how do verbs change?

You change the ending to match the person. The Office québécois de la langue française sorts most verbs into regular patterns. Almost all verbs ending in -er and many ending in -ir are regular, with a stable stem and endings that follow a model [1]. Its model for regular -er verbs is aimer, and for regular -ir verbs it is finir [1].

Regular -er verbs are more than 90% of verbs, and the Office calls this the only truly productive conjugation in current French: new verbs such as texter follow it [1]. That makes the -er pattern the best one to learn first. Aller is the exception to watch: it ends in -er but is irregular, with forms such as je vais and elle ira [1].

The Office’s table also shows that devoir, pouvoir, savoir and vouloir look alike in the infinitive but conjugate very differently [1]. Avoir and être are irregular too, and they serve as auxiliaries in compound tenses [1]. For which tense to use when, see French tenses explained.

How to say “and” in French?

You say et. It is a coordinating conjunction that links words, groups of words or whole sentences [2]. It is not a verb, but you will use it in almost every sentence that has two actions, such as je mange et je lis (I eat and I read).

Mind the comma. The Office says there is usually no comma before or after et [2]. In a list, commas separate the items, but et normally replaces the comma before the last two [2]. A comma is needed when et joins two sentences with different subjects, or when the second sentence strengthens the first, gives a consequence or marks an opposition [2].

How do you say help in French?

The verb is aider, “to help”. It ends in -er, and almost all verbs ending in -er are regular [1]. The related noun is aide (help), and a polite request is aidez-moi (help me). Those two forms are our own French, not taken from the Office’s pages.

For a request like “Can you help me?”, you combine two verbs from the list: pouvoir and aider. That pairing, a conjugated verb followed by an infinitive, is how most everyday French sentences are built.

How can you practise these verbs?

Start with the first ten in the table and say each aloud with je. Add ten more once those feel easy. A general suggestion, not a sourced method: sort the list into regular -er verbs and the rest, and learn the -er group’s endings once. If you want to hear from Lingwell when it opens, join the waitlist.

Common mistakes

• Treating aller as a regular -er verb. It ends in -er but is irregular: je vais, elle ira [1].
• Mixing savoir and connaître. Both are “to know” in English. Use savoir for a fact or a skill, and connaître for a person or place.
• Putting a comma before et by habit. The Office says there is usually none, with listed exceptions [2].
• Learning verbs only in the infinitive. The form changes with mood, tense, person and number [3]. Learn at least the “I” form with each verb.
• Treating this list as a ranking. It is our working list, not an official frequency table.
• Relying on a vocabulary page from a blog, including this one. The Office’s pages are updated. Compare each page’s date with the date at the top of this page.

See also: common irregular verbs.

See also: avoir conjugation and aller conjugation and French -ir verbs.

See also: reflexive verbs in French and the French imperative.

See also: regular -er verbs.

Sources