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Avoir vs. être. The verbs avoir to have and être to be are two of the most important verbs in the French language: they can be used alone as main verbs or they can be used as auxiliary verbs to form the French compound tenses. Read on to see the conjugation of these two verbs, then master the difference between avoir and être as auxiliary ...
- Contents
- Être Andavoir: The Most Important Verbs in French
- Être Vs.Avoir as Auxiliary Verbs
- Other Important Rules For French Auxiliary Verbs
- Non-Auxiliary Uses of être and avoir
- Resources For Practicing être Vs.Avoir
The verb être means “to be,” and it’s used for expressing identity and state. On the other hand, the verb avoirmeans “to have” and talks about possession. Here are some examples: Je suis fatigué. (I am tired.) Il est médecin. (He is a doctor). J’ai un chat. (I have a cat.) Nous avons une réunion. (We have a meeting.) Both être and avoir can also be...
Now, take a look below at how to create the passé composéfor all the other French verbs using these two verbs as auxiliaries. In compound verb tenses, both verbs come before the main verb (or the participle) and conjugate directly with the subject: J’ai parlé. (I spoke.) Nous sommes montés. (We climbed.) There are very rigid rule-based situations w...
Agreement withÊtre
When we use être as an auxiliary, the past participle must agree with the gender and number of the subject. This means that an -e is added to past participles of feminine subjects and an -s is added to past participles of plural subjects. For subjects that are both feminine and plural, both -e and -sare added to the past participle: Tu es allé à l’école. (You went to school.) Elle est allée au magasin. (She went to the store.) Nous sommes allés à la bibliothèque. (We went to the library.) Ell...
Être andAvoir Auxiliaries with a Direct Object
Remember how we said that verbs take être when there is no direct object present? Well, what happens if a DR MRS VANDERTRAMPverb does have a direct object present? In that case, the verb takes avoir as an auxiliary verb: Jesuis descendu. (I went down.) J’ai descendu le livre. (I took the book downstairs.) In this case, the first sentence uses être because there is no direct object, but in the second case, because le livre is following the verb, this DR MRS VANDERTRAMP has to take avoiras an a...
There are specific uses and rules for être. For example, when êtreis used to talk about one’s profession, no article precedes the following noun: Il est avocat. (He is a lawyer.) Nous sommes étudiants. (We are students.) Further, when être is used as a linking verb (followed by an adjective), the adjective that follows must agree in gender and in n...
Feel like you got a hold on when to use être and when to use avoir? You can use the following resources to practice conjugating être and avoir in different tenses: Start with ToLearnFrench andProProfsfor a simple conjugation quiz. Next, try AllTheTests for anêtre-only quiz and Lingolia for a quiz that combines the present tense and the passé compos...
French has two auxiliary verbs. Avoir is the auxiliary for the vast majority of French verbs, but there are a number of notable exceptions for which être is the auxiliary. Whichever verb it is, the auxiliary is consistent for all compound conjugations: avoir verbs always take avoir as their auxiliary verb for all compound tenses and moods ...
In a nutshell, "être" means “to be” and "avoir" means “to have”: J’ai un frère et une sœur. I have a brother and a sister. Ma prof est très intéressante. My teacher is very interesting. But of course, there are always differences between languages. Have a look at a few French expressions where we use "avoir" in French while English uses “to be”.
Whether you use avoir or être basically depends on the main verb. In the above examples, manger, like most verbs, uses avoir. But tomber is a special verb that uses être instead. The verbs that use être are: all reflexive verbs;
Apr 2, 2019 · Entrer = to go in, to enter. We can conjugate its passé composé with: être (=”to be”) → Il est entré par la porte. He entered through the door. avoir (=”to have”) → Il a entré la clé dans la serrure. He entered the key in the lock. The simple difference: If the subject of the sentence is the one entering somewhere, then it’s être.
Être or avoir as auxiliary in compound verb tenses. In addition to being very common verbs in French, être and avoir have distinct functions outside of their simple meanings. Indeed, when used in conjunction with other verbs, these two verbs are called auxiliaries.
