Formation and rules

Simple negation is done by wrapping ne … pas around the verb:

Je ne porte pas mon manteau.^{I am not wearing my coat.}

In a past tense, ne … pas surrounds the auxiliary verb, not the participle:

Je n'ai pas porté mon manteau.^{I did not wear my coat.}

When an infinitive and conjugated verb are together, ne … pas usually surrounds the conjugated verb:

Je ne veux pas porter mes gants.^{I do not want to wear my gloves.}

Ne pas can also precede the infinitive for a different meaning:

Je veux ne pas porter mes gants.^{I want not to wear my gloves.}

Ne precedes any pronoun relating to the verb it affects:

Je ne les porte pas.^{I am not wearing them.}

In spoken French, the ne can be omitted, leaving simply pas after the verb in context:

Je sais pas qui vous êtes.^{I do not know who you are.}

Negation of indefinite articles

The indefinite articles un, une, and des change to de (or d’) when negating a sentence.

Formation

aller  /a.le/ (ah-lay)	to read
je vais  /vɛ/ (vay)	I go
tu vas  /va/ (vah)	you go
il va  /va/ (vah)	he goes
nous allons /a.lɔ̃/ (ah-loh(n))	we go
vous allez /a.le/ (ah-lay)	you go
ils vont  /vɔ̃/ (voh(n))	they go
allé /a.le/	gone

Usage

There is no present progressive tense in French, so aller in the present indicative is used to express both I go and I am going:

Où est-ce que tu vas?^{Where are you going?}

Aller must be used with a place and cannot stand alone.

In addition to meaning at or in, the preposition à /a/ means to when used with aller :

Je vais à Paris.^{I am going to Paris.}

Je vais au bureau.^{I am going to the office.}

Tu vas à l'école ?^{You're going to school?}

Near future · Futur proche

An infinitive preceded by aller is used to say that something is going to happen in the near future:

Il va pleuvoir demain.^{It's going to rain tomorrow.}

Il va faire froid.^{It's going to be cold.}

Je vais aller au magasin.^{I will go to the store.}

Recall that the negative goes around the conjugated verb.

Il ne va pas pleuvoir demain.^{It's not going to rain tomorrow.}

Supplementary grammar · There · y

Supplementary vocabulary · Expressions