Verb + preposition — à, de, or nothing

In one line

No rule tells you which verb takes à and which takes de — the preposition is part of the verb and has to be learnt with it, like a noun's gender.

English has this exact problem and solves it the exact same way. Nobody derives from first principles that you succeed in doing but manage to do, that you look forward to going but hope to go. You learnt those as pairs. French à and de are the same kind of fact — and, unlike English, French only has three possibilities to choose between.

The forms on this page

The table

Verbs with no preposition

The infinitive follows directly. These are mostly verbs of wanting, being able and moving:

Note that several of these take "to" in English — "want to go", "hope to go", "prefer to go" — and take nothing in French. Je veux partir, not Je veux à partir. English "to" is part of the infinitive, not a preposition, so it never translates.

Verbs with à

Their shared sense is often "movement towards, beginning, trying":

Verbs with de

Their shared sense is often "ending, separating, attempting, saying":

venir has two meanings and the preposition separates them:

Je viens manger. — I'm coming to eat Je viens de manger. — I've just eaten

Pairs that take both prepositions

Two of these come up constantly:

English uses "play" for both sports and instruments and gives you no warning that French splits them. Sports and games take à; instruments take de.

And penser à / penser de maps neatly onto English "think about" versus "think of" in the sense of having an opinion.

Two objects at once

Some verbs take a direct object and an à as well:

The pattern: the thing is direct, the person takes à. And if an infinitive follows, it comes with de.

English reverses this in a way that catches people out. English says "ask Paul to leave" — person first, no preposition. French says demander à Paul de partir — the person takes à, and the infinitive takes de. The same applies to dire à, promettre à, conseiller à, permettre à, défendre à.

Examples

Common mistakes

Is there really no logic