Semi-Auxiliary Verbs

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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’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

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