There are hundreds of irregular French verbs, and trying to memorize them as one giant list is how people burn out. The fix isn't more willpower — it's order. A small set of irregular verbs does a wildly disproportionate amount of work in real French. Learn those first, perfectly, and you've bought yourself the ability to speak while you slowly absorb the rest.

Part of the series French Conjugation Memory Tricks.

The survival 4: être, avoir, aller, faire

These four are irregular because they're so common — words that get used constantly wear down into irregular shapes (the same reason English "to be" is am/is/are/was/were). Master them and look at everything they unlock:

être (to be)

je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont

Unlocks: descriptions and states, and the auxiliary for all the DR MRS VANDERTRAMP movement verbs in the passé composé (je suis allé).

avoir (to have)

j'ai, tu as, il a, nous avons, vous avez, ils ont

Unlocks: possession, age (j'ai 30 ans), and the auxiliary for the vast majority of verbs in the passé composé (j'ai mangé). Bonus: its present tense is the futur simple endings.

aller (to go)

je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont

Unlocks: movement, and the futur proche — the easiest future in French: je vais + infinitive ("I'm going to…"). Je vais manger. You can talk about the future today, with one memorized verb.

faire (to do / make)

je fais, tu fais, il fait, nous faisons, vous faites, ils font

Unlocks: a thousand idioms — weather (il fait beau), activities (faire du sport), tasks (faire la cuisine). Faire is the duct tape of French.

Memorize these four as recited chants, the way you'd memorize a phone number — suis-es-est-sommes-êtes-sont — until you can fire any form instantly. This is the single highest-leverage hour in French conjugation.

Then chunk the rest into families

Once the survival 4 are automatic, you never again face "irregular verbs" as one list. You face a few families, each sharing a pattern:

  • The prendre family — prendre, comprendre, apprendre, surprendre. Learn prendre and the rest are just prefixes on the same conjugation.
  • The partir/dormir family — partir, sortir, dormir, sentir, servir. All drop the final stem consonant in the singular (je pars, je dors). (See the two kinds of -ir verbs.)
  • The -oir family — voir, pouvoir, vouloir, devoir. Irregular, but they rhyme and share shapes; learn them as a rhyming group.
  • The mettre / battre family — double the t in the plural (nous mettons).

A new irregular verb is rarely truly new — it almost always rhymes with a family you already know. Your job is to ask "which family is this?" not "how do I memorize another whole verb?"

A memory routine that respects the 80/20

  1. Week 1: drill only être, avoir, aller, faire — all forms, out loud and typed, until reflexive. Don't move on until they're effortless.
  2. Week 2+: add one family per week, learning the anchor verb (prendre, partir, voir) and noting which other verbs ride along.
  3. Always recall, never recognize. Cover the answer, produce the form, then check. Type the accents.
  4. Space it. Bring each verb back a day later, then a few days, then a week.

You'll be conjugating confidently in conversation long before you've "finished" the irregular list — because the verbs that actually come up are mostly the ones you learned first. Pair this with the most useful French verbs to make sure you're drilling the high-frequency set.

FAQ

What are the most important irregular French verbs?

Être (to be), avoir (to have), aller (to go) and faire (to do/make). They're the four highest-frequency verbs in French, they're the auxiliaries and helpers behind compound tenses and the futur proche, and together they appear in a huge share of everyday sentences. Learn these cold before any other irregular verb.

How do you memorize irregular French verbs?

Chunk them. Don't try to learn all irregulars at once. Master the survival 4 (être, avoir, aller, faire) as recited sets first, then group the rest by shared patterns: verbs like prendre/comprendre, sortir/partir/dormir, and -oir verbs like voir/pouvoir/vouloir. Patterns turn dozens of verbs into a few families.

Why are être and avoir so important in French?

Because they're the auxiliary verbs: every compound tense (passé composé, plus-que-parfait, etc.) is built from être or avoir plus a past participle. If you don't know them perfectly, you can't form the past tense at all, so they're the highest-leverage verbs to memorize first.