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Verbes semi-auxiliaires
In contrast with auxiliary verbs, which help create compound tenses and moods, semi-auxiliary verbs are used with infinitives to influence their meaning, tense, mood, or aspect. Some French semi-auxiliaries are equivalent to English modal verbs, and most of the top 10 French verbs can or must be used as semi-auxiliaries.
Whenever a verb is followed directly or indirectly by an infinitive and the subject of the two verbs is the same, the first is being used as a semi-auxiliary.
| J’espĂšre voir la tour Eiffel. | I hope to see the Eiffel Tower. | |
| J’essaie de lire. | I’m trying to read. | |
| Je vais me brosser les dents. | I’m going to brush my teeth. | |
| J’hĂ©site Ă te le dire. | I hesitate to tell you. |
As you can see, there may be prepositions and/or pronouns in between the semi-auxiliary and the infinitive. The semi-auxiliary can also be conjugated into different tenses and moods.
| Je voudrais la voir. | I’d like to see it. | |
| J’ai refusĂ© de lire. | I refused to read. | |
| Je pourrai me brosser les dents. | I’ll be able to brush my teeth. | |
| Je pensais te le dire. | I was thinking about telling you. |
Semi-auxiliary verbs
This list is not definitive, but it should give you a good sense of how semi-auxiliaries work. Click the links on the left for conjugation tables, and the links on the right for detailed lessons.
| adorer | to adore doing | ||
| aider Ă | to help to do | ||
| aimer | to like, love doing | ||
| aller | to be going to do | aller – near future | |
| arrĂȘter de | to stop doing | ||
| arriver Ă | to manage to do | arriver lesson | |
| avoir Ă | to have to | avoir lesson | |
| chercher Ă | to look to do | ||
| choisir de | to choose to do | ||
| continuer Ă /de | to continue to do | ||
| croire | to believe (that one) does | croire lesson | |
| désirer | to desire to | ||
| détester | to hate doing | ||
| devoir | to have to do | devoir lesson | |
| s’efforcer de | to endeavor to do | ||
| espérer | to hope to do | ||
| essayer de | to try doing | ||
| ĂȘtre Ă | to be in the process of | ĂȘtre lesson | |
| faillir | to almost do | faillir lesson | |
| faire | to have someone do | faire – causative | |
| falloir | to be necessary to do | falloir lesson | |
| hésiter à | to hesitate to do | ||
| inviter Ă | to invite to do | ||
| jurer de | to swear, vow to do | ||
| laisser | to let something happen | ||
| manquer de | something nearly happened | manquer lesson | |
| paraĂźtre | to appear, seem to be | ||
| partir | to leave in order to, to go to | ||
| passer | to call/drop in on, call for, go to | ||
| penser | to be thinking of, consider doing | ||
| persister Ă | to persist in doing | ||
| pouvoir | can, may, might, to be able to | pouvoir lesson | |
| préférer | to prefer doing | ||
| prétendre | to claim to | ||
| promettre de | to promise to do | ||
| refuser de | to refuse to do | ||
| risquer de | to risk doing, to possibly do | ||
| savoir | to know how to | savoir lesson | |
| sembler | to seem to be | ||
| sortir de | (informal) to have just done s.t | ||
| souhaiter | to hope to do | ||
| tĂącher de | to try doing | ||
| tenter de | to attempt doing | ||
| venir venir de | to come (in order) to to have just done | venir lesson venir – recent past | |
| vouloir | to want to do | vouloir lesson |
When using a semi-auxiliary verb with a direct object, that object always goes with the infinitive rather than the semi-auxiliary. Therefore, there is never any agreement with avoir verbs here.
Word order with semi-auxiliary verbs
Note that verbs like dire and permettre are not semi-auxiliaries, because the subject is telling/permitting someone else to do something. With semi-auxiliaries, the subject of both verbs is the same.
Similarly, verbs like entendre and voir are not semi-auxiliaries, because the subject is perceiving someone else doing something. These are known as verbs of perception.
Related lessons
- Auxiliary verbs
- Infinitives
- Modal verbs
- Periphrastic tenses
- Verbs of perception
- Word order with semi-auxiliary verbs
- Top 10 French verbs
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