être vs avoir

Summary

être means "to be" and avoir means "to have", but French uses avoir for many states English expresses with "to be" (age, hunger, fear), and the two split the work of forming compound tenses.

Explanation

être ("to be") and avoir ("to have") are the two most frequent verbs in French and the two auxiliaries used to build compound tenses such as the passé composé. Learning where each one goes is the single biggest early win in French.

As ordinary verbs they mostly line up with English: elle est médecin ("she is a doctor"), j'ai un frère ("I have a brother"). The trap is a set of fixed expressions where French chooses avoir but English chooses "to be": j'ai faim ("I am hungry"), j'ai vingt ans ("I am twenty"), j'ai froid ("I am cold"), j'ai peur ("I am afraid").

As auxiliaries, most verbs form the passé composé with avoir (j'ai mangé), while a small set of intransitive verbs of movement or change of state — plus all pronominal verbs — use être (je suis allé, elle s'est levée). With être, the past participle agrees with the subject; with avoir it does not (unless a direct object precedes).

Decision rule: to translate English "to be", default to être for identity, profession and description (il est grand), but switch to avoir for the closed list of bodily and emotional states — age, hunger, thirst, cold, heat, fear, sleepiness, being right or wrong (avoir raison/tort). When choosing the auxiliary in a compound tense, ask whether the verb is one of the être verbs (movement/change of state) or pronominal; if not, use avoir.

Examples

Elle est fatiguée. — She is tired.

J'ai faim. — I'm hungry. (French uses avoir, not être, for hunger.)

J'ai vingt ans. — I am twenty years old. (Age uses avoir.)

Nous sommes allés au marché. — We went to the market. (aller takes être; the participle agrees with the subject.)

J'ai mangé une pomme. — I ate an apple. (manger takes avoir.)

Regional notes

QC: In informal Québec French you may hear the auxiliary avoir with some verbs that take être in standard French (e.g. « j'ai tombé » instead of « je suis tombé »). This is stigmatized in writing but common in casual speech.

Common mistakes

Prerequisites

• Present indicative

Related rules

• Auxiliary selection: avoir vs être
• Past-participle agreement with être (subject)