Secret Tips to Conjugate Faire in French Verb Tenses

Faire is an irregular verb that doesn’t ’t have a pattern to follow, it’s mandatory for one to memorize and practice conjugating it. It’s a commonly used verb that one will read and hear about it often.

Here we’ll offer guidance on how to conjugate faire in most common French verb tenses. This will provide a list of faire and other tenses.

Faire Conjugation – Present Simple Tense (do, make)

For Example: Je fais le ménage pendant mes loisirs. (I do cleaning during my spare time.)

Faire Conjugation – Perfect Tense (did, made)

It’s important to remember that Avoir is an auxiliary verb used with faire.

For Example: Le charpentier a fait une table. (The carpenter made a table.)

Faire Conjugation Imperfect Tense (Used to/make;was/making/doing/would do)

For Example: En vacances, quand ils allaient en famille, ils fabriquaient des tables en bois pour s’amuser, quand ils partaient avec des amis. Quand ils y vont de nos jours avec des amis, ils preferent cuisine pour s’amuser. (At vacation, when they went as a family, they made wooden tables for fun. Nowadays when they go with friends, they prefer to cook for fun.)

Faire Conjugation – Future Simple Tense (will do/ make)

For Example: Que ferez-vous lorsque vous aurez un emploi? (What will you do when you have an employee?)

Faire Conjugation – Conditional Tenses (would do/make)

For Example: Je ne ferais des affaires que si cela me permettait de réaliser des profits élevés. (I would only do business if it made me earn high profits.)

Faire Conjugation – Subjunctive Mood (that (subject) do/make (expressing a wish/ situation)

For Example: Je veux qu’il fasse ses propres devoirs à partir de maintenant. (I want him to do his own duties from now.)

Faire: Imperative Forms

Uses of Faire in French

Faire is important when learning French since one can use it instead of other verbs that you might not know yet. For instance, it’s fine to use  faire for create or make but as you learn more about French and your vocabulary increases, one can replace it with verbs like, creer, inventer, fabriquer and others.

There are some cases though where you discover that faire can mostly fit. There will be no alternative. Below are some common cases.

Phrasal verbs with faire

There are numerous expressions and verbs that use faire. Here are some of the most common phrasal verbs with faire that you might come across.

Some other ways to use Faire

Define time

Faire can be used to show that a certain amount of time has passed. It’s not correct to say that, it’s now ten minutes that she has been waiting.  It’s not correct English but one will understand. A French speaker learning English would say, elle attend depuis dix minutes.(she has been waiting for ten minutes.)

Define Dimensions

Faire can be used to talk about the total of measurements. Example : cette salle est de 80 metres carres. (this room is 80 square meters.)

Define “equals” in mathematics

For instance: 4 et 4 font 16.
This is the most common French mathematical expression one will ever see. Example 2 plus 2 egal 4.

Define Weather

Example:
Quel temps fait-il aujourd’hui (how is the weather today?)
Il pleut. (It’s raining.)
C’est beau quand il fait beau. (It looks great when it’s sunny.)

Define Something

For Example :
Ils lui ont fait faire tout leur travail.(they made her do all they duties.)
Il a fait réparer le véhicule. (He had the vehicle repaired.)

Define Expressions

Example:
Faire bouillir l’eau (boil water.)
Faire les assiettes. (Clean the plates.)

Define a Noun

In some instances you’ll find that, faire is used as a noun instead of a verb. Most popular examples of these have crossed linguistic borders and are used in a number of countries. These are; savior faire and laissez-faire

Points to remember

Despite that faire means to do/make, we have also seen that it can be used to talk about making other people do something, hence it cannot be used with feelings. For instance; elle le fait heureux, cela me fait triste, are incorrect. The correct versions  of these sentences are; elle le rend heureux, cela me rend triste. Once one comprehends the basic, faire becomes simple.

As you continue learning more about French and start watching French tv shows, YouTube clips, newspapers and practicing the French together course. Through this you’ll learn a lot on faire and come across so many instances where faire has been used in a variety of ways. This will eventually help you acquire more knowledge on French even without realizing it. Also, you can take the help of our French tutors for further help and guidance.

Quiz: Test your knowledge of French Faire!

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French Faire

1 / 7

Les enfants (fait / faites / faisez / font) la sieste.

English: The children are taking a nap.

fait

faites

faisez

font

2 / 7

Julien (fait / a fait / faire) la lessive hier soir 

English: Julien did the laundry yesterday

fait

a fait

faire

3 / 7

“Ma mère lui fait confiance.” means

my mother does trust.

My mother trusts him.

My trust is for my mother.

4 / 7

“Je faisais la queue, comme tout le monde !” means

I was doing it, like everyone else!

I was the queue, like everyone else!

I was waiting in line, like everyone else!

5 / 7

“Arrête, tu fais mal à ton frère.” means

Stop, you’re doing your brother wrong.

Stop, you’re hurting your brother.

Stop, your brother is feeling wrong.

6 / 7

Je vous laisse faire connaissance.” means

I let you know them

I let you know each other

I let you guess if you know each other

7 / 7

“Nous ferons semblant de dormir.” means

We pretend to sleep

We will sleep later.

We will let sleep come to us.

We will pretend to sleep

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