Je peux, je veux, je dois — modal verbs + the infinitive

• In one line: four small verbs let you stop describing facts and start talking about what is possible, what you want, what you must do, and what you know how to do.
• Until now, most of your sentences have said what is: je travaille, j’habite à Toronto.
• That is useful, but flat. Real conversation is full of a second layer — I can work Saturdays, I want to move, I have to leave early, I know how to drive.
• French builds that whole second layer with one tiny machine: you conjugate one verb, and you leave the second verb exactly as it appears in the dictionary.
• The four verbs that drive this machine are pouvoir (can), vouloir (to want), devoir (must) and savoir (to know how to).
• Learn their present forms once, and every other verb you already know — hundreds of them — instantly gets four new jobs, with no extra work at all.

• That second verb is the infinitive — the dictionary form, the "to…"
• form: parler (to speak), partir (to leave), finir (to finish), prendre (to take).
• You have been chopping the ending off this form since you started learning verbs.
• Here you get to do the opposite, and it is far easier: you leave it completely alone.
• Look at what happens when the subject changes:

• Read the third column from top to bottom: travailler, six times, identical.
• Only the middle column moves.
• This is the single most important habit on this page, and it is also the place where learners lose the most marks, because English gives you no warning: in English you say "he can work" and "he works" with two different shapes, so your ear expects the second verb to react to the subject.
• In French it simply does not. Once the helper verb is conjugated, the job is finished — the second verb rests.

• One more thing worth noticing before we open the four verbs one by one.
• All four are irregular — they do not follow the tidy stem-plus-ending recipe you learned with parler.
• You cannot build them; you have to know them.
• That sounds like bad news, and it is not: there are only four of them, they are among the ten most-used verbs in the language, and you will say them so often that within two weeks they will come out of your mouth without a single thought.
• Treat the six forms of each one as six words to learn by heart, like vocabulary — because that is exactly what they are.

• In one line: pouvoir opens the door to everything you are able to do, allowed to do, or might possibly do.
• This is probably the single most useful verb on this page, because it covers three different English ideas at once — can, may and might — with one set of forms.
• You use it to say what you are physically able to do (je peux porter cette valise), to ask for or give permission (est-ce que je peux entrer ?), and to say that something is merely possible (il peut faire froid ce soir).
• Notice the spelling shift in the middle of the table below: the peu- family covers je, tu, il and ils, while pouv- shows up only in nous and vous.
• That split — one shape for the four "quiet" people, another for nous and vous — repeats in all four verbs here, so spot it once and you have a map for the rest.

• Two spelling details to lock in now, because they cost marks later.
• First, je peux and tu peux both end in -x, not -s.
• French keeps an old -x on a tiny handful of verbs, and pouvoir and vouloir are two of them.
• Second, ils peuvent is pronounced « peuv » — the -ent at the end is written for the eye only and never leaves your mouth, exactly as with ils parlent.
• Saying "peuv-ent" out loud is one of the fastest ways to sound like a beginner, so train it out early.

Use 1 · Ability — "I am able to"

• Je peux travailler le samedi. I can work on Saturdays.
• Il peut porter cette valise. He can carry this suitcase.
• Nous pouvons finir avant midi. We can finish before noon.
• Elles peuvent venir à pied. They can come on foot.

Use 2 · Permission — "am I allowed to?"

• Est-ce que je peux entrer ? May I come in?
• Tu peux partir maintenant. You can leave now.
• Vous pouvez attendre ici. You can wait here.
• On ne peut pas fumer dans le bâtiment. You cannot smoke inside the building.

Use 3 · Possibility — "it might happen"

• Il peut faire froid ce soir. It might be cold tonight.
• Le train peut arriver en retard. The train may arrive late.
• Ça peut coûter cher. That can be expensive.

• In one line: vouloir says what you want — and the polite version of it, je voudrais, is a phrase you should learn today and use for the rest of your life.
• The forms follow the same split you just saw with pouvoir: a veu- shape for je, tu, il and ils, and a voul- shape for nous and vous.
• As soon as you have them, you can talk about plans, wishes, preferences and intentions — which is most of what people actually talk about.
• But there is a social catch attached to this verb, and it matters more than the spelling: said flatly to a stranger, je veux lands about as gently as "I want" does in English when you say it to a shop assistant.
• French handles this with one ready-made phrase, and we will meet it below.

• Je veux apprendre le français. I want to learn French.
• Tu veux venir avec nous ? Do you want to come with us?
• Elle veut changer de travail. She wants to change jobs.
• Nous voulons visiter le Québec. We want to visit Quebec.
• Vous voulez commander maintenant ? Would you like to order now?
• Ils veulent rester encore une semaine. They want to stay one more week.

The politeness problem — and its one-phrase solution

• Here is the situation to picture. You are at a counter, in a bank, in a pharmacy, in a café.
• You say Je veux un café. Every word is correct French.
• Nothing is misspelled. And yet the person behind the counter hears something closer to "I want a coffee." — blunt, a demand rather than a request.
• French has a softer form built exactly for these moments, and you do not need to understand how it is made in order to use it perfectly.
• Learn it as one fixed block of sound:

• Treat je voudrais the way you treat s’il vous plaît: a finished phrase, memorised whole, never taken apart.
• You only need two more members of the family, and both are just as fixed: nous voudrions (we would like) and tu voudrais / vous voudriez (you would like).
• That is enough for every counter, every desk and every phone call you will make.

• In one line: devoir is duty — the things you are obliged to do — plus one extra job that surprises everybody, guessing. The forms split the same way once more: doi- for je, tu, il and ils; dev- for nous and vous.
• The main use is obligation, and it covers the whole English range from soft to hard: je dois partir can be "I have to leave", "I need to leave" or "I must leave", depending on how firmly you say it.
• But devoir also has a second life. When you look at the evidence in front of you and draw the obvious conclusion — the office is dark, so the office must be closed — French reaches for this exact same verb.
• That second use is worth real attention, because it comes up constantly in ordinary talk and learners almost never produce it.

Use 1 · Obligation — something is required of a named person

• Je dois partir à huit heures. I have to leave at eight o’clock.
• Tu dois remplir ce formulaire. You have to fill in this form.
• Il doit travailler ce week-end. He has to work this weekend.
• Nous devons arriver avant midi. We have to arrive before noon.
• Vous devez montrer votre passeport. You must show your passport.
• Ils doivent payer avant vendredi. They have to pay before Friday.

Use 2 · Strong guessing — "that must be…"

• Picture the moment. Your colleague has not answered in two days and his desk is empty.
• In English you say: he must be ill.
• You are not ordering him to be ill — you are reading the evidence and reaching the only sensible conclusion.
• French uses devoir for this in exactly the same way, and the sentence looks identical to an obligation sentence.
• The verb that follows is very often être (to be), which is your best clue that a guess is being made rather than a duty imposed.

• Il doit être malade. He must be ill.
• Elle doit être fatiguée. She must be tired.
• Ça doit coûter très cher. That must be very expensive.
• Le magasin doit être fermé — il est minuit. The shop must be closed — it’s midnight.
• Tu dois avoir faim après ce voyage. You must be hungry after that trip.

• In one line: savoir is a skill you carry inside you; pouvoir is whether the world is letting you use it right now.
• English blurs these together under one word — "can" — and that single fact produces more mistakes than almost anything else at this level.
• "I can swim" in English says nothing about whether there is water nearby.
• French insists on splitting the idea in two.
• Savoir + infinitive means you have learned how to do something: someone taught you, you practised, and the ability now lives in you permanently.
• Pouvoir + infinitive means the door is open at this moment: you have the time, the permission, the equipment, the strength.
• Get this right and native speakers immediately hear that you are thinking in French rather than translating.

• Notice something comforting: the split is exactly the same shape as the other three verbs.
• A short form for je, tu, il and ils (sai-), a longer one for nous and vous (sav-).
• Four verbs, one architecture. Notice too that French does not translate the word "how" here — there is no extra word between the two verbs.
• Je sais nager is two words for what English needs four words to say: "I know how to swim".
• Never insert anything in the gap.

savoir — the learned skill

• Je sais nager. I know how to swim.
• Tu sais conduire ? Do you know how to drive?
• Il sait réparer un vélo. He knows how to repair a bicycle.
• Nous savons cuisiner. We know how to cook.
• Vous savez utiliser ce logiciel ? Do you know how to use this software?
• Elles savent parler trois langues. They know how to speak three languages.

The two side by side — same skill, different day

The clearest way to feel the difference is to put both verbs in a single sentence about the same person and the same action. Read these slowly; each one contains a small story.

• In every one of those sentences, the first half is permanent and the second half is about today.
• That is the whole distinction. The skill does not disappear because the pool is closed — so savoir stays true — while pouvoir reports on the circumstances of the moment.

The four sentences that go wrong most often

All four verbs, one table — keep this one

• Look down each column and you will see the same architecture four times: three short twins at the top, two longer forms for nous and vous, and a plural form ending in a silent -ent.
• Look across each row and you will see that je always ends in -x or -s, and il always ends in -t.
• Twenty-four forms — but really only one shape, learned once.

• In one line: il faut means "one must", "you have to", "it is necessary" — an obligation floating in the air, aimed at everybody and nobody in particular.
• This is one of the most useful three-letter-plus-four-letter combinations in French, and it behaves unlike anything in English.
• The il at the front is not a person: it does not mean "he", it points at nothing at all.
• The expression has no real subject, and that is exactly the point — the obligation belongs to the situation, not to a named individual.
• Because of that, the form never changes.
• There is one form, il faut, and you use it for every situation, every listener, every day of your life.
• That makes it, mercifully, the easiest thing on this whole page.

• Il faut partir maintenant. We need to leave now. / One must leave now.
• Il faut réserver à l’avance. You have to book in advance.
• Il faut être patient. One must be patient.
• Il faut montrer une pièce d’identité. You have to show identification.
• Il faut arriver vingt minutes avant. You have to arrive twenty minutes early.
• Il faut faire attention sur cette route. You have to be careful on this road.

• Now the useful part: the difference between il faut partir and je dois partir.
• Both are obligations, but they point in different directions.
• Je dois partir attaches the duty to one named person — me.
• It is personal, and it usually implies a private reason: my shift starts, my train leaves, I promised someone.
• Il faut partir attaches the duty to the situation itself, so it lands on whoever is present — often "we", sometimes a general "you", sometimes the whole world.
• It is what you say when the building is closing and everyone in the room has to go.
• In everyday speech il faut is extremely common, precisely because it is softer: it does not point a finger at anyone.

• In one line: the four modal verbs are not a closed club — a whole crowd of ordinary verbs joins a dictionary-form verb directly, with nothing in between. This is where the pattern starts paying you back beyond the four verbs you have just learned.
• Aimer, préférer, détester, espérer, aller, faire and laisser all behave exactly like pouvoir: conjugate them normally, then park the second verb behind them untouched.
• Nothing goes in the gap — no à, no de, no word for "to".
• That empty gap is a real rule, not an absence of one, and in the next two sections you will meet the verbs that insist on filling it.

• Look closely at j’aime voyager. English gives you two options — "I like travelling" and "I like to travel" — and French has only one shape for both, the plain dictionary form.
• So when you want to say "I like -ing", do not hunt for a special ending; there is none at this level.
• Say j’aime and then the dictionary form, and you are done.
• The same goes for je déteste attendre: "I hate waiting", one dictionary-form verb, no ending to add.

• Elle aime lire le soir. She likes reading in the evening.
• Nous préférons manger à la maison. We prefer to eat at home.
• Ils détestent travailler le dimanche. They hate working on Sundays.
• J’espère réussir. I hope to succeed.
• Vous allez signer ici. You’re going to sign here.
• On va manger ensemble. We’re going to eat together.

• In one line: some verbs refuse to touch the second verb directly and demand a small à in the gap — and there is no logic to it, so learn each one as a single chunk.
• This is the part of the lesson that rewards memory rather than understanding.
• Why does commencer take à while essayer takes de?
• There is no rule hiding behind it, no pattern to work out, no shortcut.
• French simply decided, centuries ago, and the decision stuck.
• The list you need is short. Never memorise the bare verb.
• Memorise commencer à as one word-shaped thing, with the à glued on, the way you would learn a phone number rather than six separate digits.

Two of these deserve a closer look because they are far more useful than they appear. arriver à does not mean "to arrive" here — it means "to manage", and its negative form, je n’arrive pas à…, is what French speakers say a dozen times a day when something will not work: je n’arrive pas à dormir (I can’t get to sleep), je n’arrive pas à trouver la rue (I can’t manage to find the street). And continuer à lets you talk about things that carry on: elle continue à apprendre le français (she keeps on learning French). Both are worth practising until they arrive whole.

• In one line: a second group of verbs fills the gap with de instead — and this group is bigger, more useful, and just as unexplainable. Everything from the last section applies here: no logic, no shortcut, learn the chunk whole.
• essayer de, décider de, oublier de — always store the little de with the verb, never apart from it.
• What makes this list especially worth your time is that three of its members are not really verbs at all but ready-made expressions built on avoir and être: avoir envie de, avoir besoin de, être obligé de.
• Those three will carry an enormous amount of your everyday speech, because they cover wanting, needing and having to — three things you talk about constantly.

• Three practical notes on the last three. First, avoir envie de is the warm, natural way to say what you fancy doing: j’ai envie d’un café, j’ai envie de rester à la maison ce soir (I feel like staying home tonight).
• It is softer than je veux and native speakers use it constantly.
• Second, être obligé de carries a small extra detail: the word obligé describes the person, so a woman writes je suis obligée de partir with an extra e, and a group writes nous sommes obligés.
• Third, watch the shrinking: de becomes d’ in front of a vowel sound, exactly like je → j’.
• So it is j’essaie d’arriver à l’heure, never de arriver.

• J’essaie d’arriver à l’heure. I try to arrive on time.
• Nous avons besoin de parler au responsable. We need to speak to the manager.
• Elle a envie de changer de ville. She feels like moving to another city.
• Ils arrêtent de travailler à midi. They stop working at noon.
• Vous êtes obligés de réserver. You are required to book.

• In one line: ne and pas close around the conjugated verb only, and the dictionary-form verb stays outside, untouched, on the right. You already know that French says "not" with two pieces, one on each side of the verb.
• The only question a second verb raises is: which verb do the two pieces hug?
• The answer is short and never varies — they hug the first one, the one that was conjugated.
• So je peux venir becomes je ne peux pas venir, with venir sitting quietly outside the sandwich.
• Never split the second verb, never put pas after it.
• This one habit will keep your negative sentences clean for the rest of your French life.

• Look at that last row carefully. When a link word is involved, it does not move either — the de stays glued to the second verb, on the far side of pas.
• The negative pieces never step over it. Same with à: je n’arrive pas à ouvrir la porte (I can’t manage to open the door).
• And remember that ne shrinks to n’ before a vowel sound, exactly as it always has: je n’essaie pas, il n’aime pas attendre.

The meaning trap: "must not" is not "don’t have to"

• Now the part that carries real meaning, not just word order.
• In English, "you mustn’t leave" and "you don’t have to leave" are close in shape but opposite in sense: one forbids, the other frees.
• French keeps them apart with different expressions, and mixing them up can genuinely change what people understand you to mean.
• Il ne faut pas is a prohibition — it is the sign on the wall, the rule, the firm "don’t".
• It never means "it isn’t necessary". To say something is simply not required, French uses on n’est pas obligé de or ce n’est pas nécessaire.

• In one line: three ways to ask, and only the first verb ever moves. The three question-building methods you already know all work here without a single change.
• Method one, the easiest: say a normal sentence and lift your voice at the end.
• Method two, the safe standard: put est-ce que in front and change nothing else.
• Method three, the more formal one: swap the conjugated verb and the subject, joining them with a hyphen.
• The only new thing to notice is which verb takes part in that swap — and it is always the conjugated one.
• The dictionary-form verb never joins the flip and never takes a hyphen.
• Peux-tu venir ? is right; peux venir-tu ? is not a sentence anyone would say.

• Est-ce que vous voulez commencer maintenant ? Do you want to start now?
• Devons-nous réserver à l’avance ? Do we have to book in advance?
• Sais-tu conduire ? Do you know how to drive?
• Qu’est-ce que tu veux faire ce soir ? What do you want to do tonight?
• Est-ce qu’il faut payer à l’entrée ? Do you have to pay at the entrance?
• Pourquoi est-ce que vous ne pouvez pas venir ? Why can’t you come?

The polite question forms — learn these whole

• Exactly as with je voudrais, French has softer versions of these questions for the moments that need them: asking a stranger for help, speaking to an official, making a request in a shop or an office.
• You do not need to understand how they are built.
• Learn each one as a single block of sound and use it as it stands.

• In one line: verbs like se lever keep their little partner word when they follow a modal — and that word must match the real subject, not stay frozen as se.
• You already use verbs that travel with a small word attached: je me lève (I get up), tu te reposes (you rest), nous nous préparons (we get ready).
• That small word is a partner that always points back at the person doing the action, and it changes for every subject: me, te, se, nous, vous, se.
• When such a verb goes into the second slot after a modal, it stays in its dictionary form — but the partner word does not stay frozen.
• It must still match whoever the sentence is about.
• This is the single most common mistake in this lesson, and it is easy to avoid once you have seen it.

• Read down the middle column and you will see the partner word changing at every step, while the verb on the right — lever, reposer, dépêcher, préparer, inscrire — never moves at all.
• That is the whole picture: the dictionary form is frozen, its little partner is not.
• The reason is simple once you say it out loud: the partner word points back at the person acting, and the person acting is the subject at the front of the sentence.
• If je is getting up, the word must be me, because it is me I am getting up.
• Leaving se there would mean somebody else entirely.

• That fourth row is worth a second look.
• On its own, the partner word sits in front of the conjugated verb: je me lève.
• But as soon as a modal takes over the front position, the partner word moves along with its own verb into the second slot: je dois me lever.
• Think of the partner word as belonging to the verb, not to the sentence — wherever that verb goes, its partner goes too, always immediately in front of it.