Module 3 of 10
Faire — the verb that covers half of daily life
Doing, making, the weather, sport, shopping and homework.
Faire means do and make, and it also means a great many things that are neither. You do not play sport in French, you faire it; you do not go shopping, you faire the courses; and the weather, as the last course showed, is something il fait. Treat the expressions as vocabulary rather than as the verb doing its job — je fais du sport is a phrase to learn whole, exactly like je m'appelle was.
The forms are fais, fais, fait, faisons, faites, font. Vous faites is the one that catches people, because every other -ez ending in the language has trained you to expect vous faisez, which does not exist. Three verbs in French end in -tes for vous — faites, dites, êtes — and they are all common, so learning them as a set of three now saves three separate corrections later.
Played by your device’s own French voice. It is a synthetic voice, not a recording of a teacher — close enough to learn the shape of a word, not close enough to copy exactly.
- Je faisI do, I make
- Tu fais / Il faitYou do / he does
- Nous faisons / Vous faites / Ils fontWe do / you do / they do — vous faites is irregular
- Je fais les coursesI do the shopping — the food shopping, specifically
- Je fais mes devoirsI do my homework
- Je fais du sportI play sport, I exercise
- Vous faites quoi ce soir ?What are you doing this evening?
- Ça fait combien ?How much does that come to?
Faire carries sport, shopping, homework and the weather. Vous faites, not faisez — and it belongs with dites and êtes.