The 100 most common French verbs

There are over 7,000 verbs in French, but a small core does nearly all the work. Below are the 100 most common French verbs, ranked by how often they actually appear in spoken French, each with its English translation and a link to its full conjugation table.

If you only have time for part of the list, start with the first 30. Verb frequency falls off a cliff: the top 30 appear far more often than verbs 31 to 100, which in turn dwarf 101 to 500. The section after the table explains which ones to take first and why.

The 100 most common French verbs

Every verb links to its full conjugation across all 15 tenses and moods.

Two honest caveats about any list like this. First, corpora disagree at the margins: a verb sitting at #62 here might be #75 on another list, because spoken and written French weight verbs differently. The tiers are meaningful, the exact positions are not. Second, se souvenir (#88) is pronominal, so it always travels with a reflexive pronoun (je me souviens) and takes être in compound tenses. See pronominal verbs for how that group works.

Where to start: the first 30

If you learn the list top to bottom you'll do fine, but these groupings make the first 30 stick faster.

The five you cannot speak French without

These are the auxiliaries, the connectors, and the most common action verbs in the language. Every other verb you learn assumes you can conjugate these in your sleep.

The modals, which multiply every other verb

These combine with infinitives to express can, want, should, must. Learn them and you instantly double your expressive range.

⚠️ savoir and connaître both mean "to know" but aren't interchangeable. savoir = facts and skills (je sais nager, I know how to swim). connaître = people and places (je connais Paris).

Everyday actions

The verbs you'll use to describe what you and the people around you do, every day.

The movement verbs that take être

French distinguishes movement verbs more than English. These take être in compound tenses, not avoir, and you'll trip over them constantly if you don't memorise that fact.

Memorise the aux: Je suis allé ✓, J'ai allé ✗. The full set is in the 14 être verbs.

Filling the gaps

Slightly less common, still essential. You'll hear all of these every day.

Why the first 30 matter most

A list of 100 is a roadmap, not a memorisation target. Verb frequency drops off a cliff: the top 30 appear far more often than verbs 31 to 100, which in turn dwarf 101 to 500. So work down the table rather than across it, and treat each block of ten as a milestone rather than trying to hold the whole hundred at once.

Practically: get the first 30 to the point where you can produce them in présent and passé composé without pausing, then keep going. Verbs 31 to 100 are worth real time once that's true, and they're where you stop sounding like a beginner. Beyond 100, you're better served by reading and listening than by drilling lists, because the returns per verb get small fast. Every verb on this page has a full conjugation table, and the complete verb index goes well past 100 when you want it.

How to actually learn these

Three things tend to derail beginners on this list:

1. They try to learn a whole block at once. Don't. Lock down être, avoir, and aller in présent and passé composé first. Add the modals (pouvoir, vouloir, devoir). Then layer in the action verbs and work down the table.
2. They learn the infinitive but not the conjugations. Knowing aller is useless if you can't produce je vais, tu vas, nous allons, vous êtes allés. Practice the conjugations, not the infinitives.
3. They use multiple-choice apps. Recognition ≠ production. You need to type out the form to retain it.

The Bonjour Verbs app is built around exactly this ordering. The free tier covers the top 30 verbs in présent indicatif and gives you a Custom Quiz builder to drill them however you want. Pro unlocks the full list across the other 14 tenses (passé composé, imparfait, futur, conditionnel, subjonctif, impératif and more), plus Smart Quiz and the guided roadmap so you're never wondering what now. Browse every conjugation table →

Common questions

What are the 100 most common French verbs?

The list is headed by être, avoir, aller, faire and dire, then the modals pouvoir, vouloir, savoir and devoir, then everyday action verbs like voir, venir, parler, prendre, croire and aimer. The full ranked hundred with English translations is in the table above. Frequency falls off sharply, so the first 30 are worth far more of your time than verbs 70 to 100.

What are the most important French verbs to learn?

The top five are être (to be), avoir (to have), aller (to go), faire (to do/make), and dire (to say). They show up in nearly every French sentence. After those: pouvoir, vouloir, savoir, prendre, venir, voir, falloir, devoir. These twelve verbs alone cover a huge share of everyday spoken French.

How many French verbs do I need to know to be conversational?

Roughly 30. According to corpus studies of spoken French, the top 30 verbs cover the majority of everyday speech. Master their conjugations cold and you'll understand 80% or more of what people say around you. Past 30, returns diminish quickly, which is why a list of 100 is best used as a roadmap rather than a memorisation target.

Why are être and avoir the most important French verbs?

Two reasons: they're the most-frequently-used verbs in the language, and they're the auxiliaries for passé composé. Every compound past tense you'll ever say goes through one of them. If être and avoir aren't automatic, nothing built on top of them will be either.

Should I learn French verbs in alphabetical or frequency order?

Frequency order, always. Native speakers don't use verbs uniformly, the top 30 show up exponentially more often than verbs 100–500. Drilling alphabetically wastes most of your effort on verbs you'll barely use. Start at the top of the frequency list and work down.