The French Verb Faire (To Do / Make)

Level: A1. Faire means to do or to make, and it is one of the busiest verbs in French. Beyond those two meanings it powers a long list of fixed phrases — the weather, sports, chores and homework — so you meet it every day. It is irregular, and two of its forms catch almost everyone out.

The rule

A verb is a word for an action or a state; the set of forms it takes for each subject is its conjugation. Faire belongs to the irregular verbs, so you cannot build it from a tidy stem-plus-ending rule — you learn the six present forms directly.

Most of them look regular enough: je fais, tu fais, il fait. The trouble is the last two. Vous faites does not follow the usual -ez ending (it is faites, not faisez), and ils font is a short, one-syllable form, not fontent. These two are shared with only a handful of other verbs (dire → vous dites, être → vous êtes), so fixing them early pays off.

Faire also works like a container for set expressions. Where English picks a specific verb — “to go shopping”, “to cook”, “to pay attention”, “it is sunny” — French very often reaches for faire instead: faire les courses, faire la cuisine, faire attention, il fait beau.

Forms

How to say it

French spelling hides a few of these sounds; three are worth care:

Example sentences

Common mistakes

• ❌ Vous faisez attention → ✅ Vous faites attention. Faire does not take the regular -ez; the form is faites.
• ❌ Ils fontent la cuisine → ✅ Ils font la cuisine. Ils/elles font is already the full form — nothing is added.
• ❌ Nous faitons → ✅ Nous faisons. The nous form keeps the fais- spelling, said “fe-zon”.
• ❌ Il fais du sport → ✅ Il fait du sport. Fais is for je/tu; il/elle/on takes fait.
• ❌ Je fai mes devoirs → ✅ Je fais mes devoirs. The je form keeps the final -s.
• ❌ Il est beau for “the weather is nice” → ✅ Il fait beau. Weather uses faire, not être.

A short conversation

— Qu’est-ce que tu fais ce week-end ? — Je fais du vélo samedi, et nous faisons les courses dimanche. Et vous ? — Nous ne faisons rien ! Les enfants font leurs devoirs, c’est tout.

Usage notes

• Faire = “do” and “make”. French does not split the two the way English does: faire un gâteau (make a cake), faire une erreur (make a mistake), faire le travail (do the work) all use the one verb.
• Activities take faire + a partitive. To talk about a sport or hobby you practise, use faire du / de la / de l’: faire du tennis, faire de la danse, faire de l’escalade. The little word after faire matches the gender of the activity.
• Weather is impersonal. Il fait beau has no real “it”; the il is a dummy subject, the same il as in il pleut (it is raining).
• The negative wraps the verb. Put ne … pas (or ne … rien, “nothing”) around faire: Je ne fais pas la cuisine, Elle ne fait rien.

Compared with…

• Faire causatif (faire + another verb) means to have something done by someone else, not to do it yourself: Je fais réparer ma voiture (I am having my car repaired), Elle fait couper ses cheveux (She is getting her hair cut). Same conjugation, different job — you will meet it beyond A1 in the French grammar section.
• Être and avoir cover states and possession, while faire covers doing and making. Compare il est médecin (he is a doctor) with il fait de la médecine (he studies / practises medicine). Review the verb être and the verb avoir.
• Make sure you know the French subject pronouns je, tu, il… before you drill faire.

Quick recap before the quiz.

Practice

Quiz

Recap cheat-sheet

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• Next grammar point: review the verb avoir
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