How to Make French Verbs Negative

Learning negation is a major step towards learning to speak French fluently.

Basic negation is one of the easiest French grammar rules to learn. And when you learn how to negate French verbs, you increase your ability to use the language by a factor of two. The French use the compound adverb "ne...pas" to indicate negation. Roughly translated, it means "do not." It may be used with any simple or compound French verb in the following way: ne + conjugated verb + pas.

Instructions

1. Place "ne" in front of verbs that start with consonants. Place "n'" in front of verbs that start with vowels to create a liaison.

2. Place "pas" immediately after the conjugated verb. For example, "Nous avons aller au cinema" (We are going to go to the movies) becomes "Nous n'avons pas aller au cinema" (We're not going to go to the movies). The negation goes around "avons" because it is conjugated, whereas "aller" is not, remaining in infinitive form. Also notice that because "avons" begins with a vowel, "n'" is used instead of "ne" to create the liaison.

3. Place the "pas" after the subject pronoun when negating an inverted question. For example, "As-tu faim?" (Are you hungry?) becomes "N'as-tu pas faim?" (Aren't you hungry/You're not hungry?) when negated.

4. Change the indefinite or partitive article following a negative statement to "de" (not/any). For example, "J'ai une robe" (I have a dress) becomes "Je n'ai pas de robe" (I don't have any dresses) when negated.

Tips & Warnings

• In informal spoken French, "ne" is often dropped.

• The rules are hard to learn without practice. Check out the Resources section for a practice worksheet.

References

• Tex's French Grammar: Introduction to Negation
• Jump Gate: Lesson 5 - Sentence Structures

Resources

• Practice Negation