Aller – to go

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Go to French Verb

Aller is one of the most common and useful French verbs and has irregular conjugations in most tenses and moods. Aller literally means "to go" and is required to create the near future.

Aller = to go

Generally speaking, aller is equivalent to "to go."

Par exemple…

Où vas-tu ?		Where are you going?
Je vais à l’école.		I’m going to school.
Il veut y aller avec toi.		He wants to go with you.
Nous sommes allés en Grèce.		We went to Greece.

 In English, "I’m going" can be a complete sentence, letting the person you’re talking to know that you’re either heading somewhere that you were just talking about or leaving your current location. But French is different: if  you just say Je vais, you’ll leave your friend wondering where exactly you’re going. So you must do one of the following:

• name the place
• include the adverbial pronoun y
• use the pronominal verb s’en aller

Je vais au Mali.		I’m going to Mali.
J’y vais.		I’m going (there).
Je m’en vais.		I’m going, I’m off.

Aller = to be going to

Aller plus an infinitive creates the near future.

Je vais partir.		I’m going to leave.
Nous allions manger.		We were going to eat.

 As above, you can’t say Je vais. to mean "I’m going to." You have to follow it with an infinitive, such as je vais le faire.

Aller in action

• Aller conjugations
• Expressions with aller
• Does il va de soi que need the subjunctive?

 Related lessons

• Top 10 irregular verbs
• Être verbs
• Introduction to French verbs
   

 En español

• Ir
   

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