![]() |
|
Share / Tweet / Pin Me! |
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’espère 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’hésite à 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 refusé 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 à | to help to do | ||
aimer | to like, love doing | ||
aller | to be going to do | aller – near future | |
arrêter de | to stop doing | ||
arriver à | to manage to do | arriver lesson | |
avoir à | to have to | avoir lesson | |
chercher à | to look to do | ||
choisir de | to choose to do | ||
continuer à/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 | ||
être à | to be in the process of | être 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 à | to invite to do | ||
jurer de | to swear, vow to do | ||
laisser | to let something happen | ||
manquer de | something nearly happened | manquer lesson | |
paraître | 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 à | 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 | ||
tâcher 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
Share / Tweet / Pin Me!