{"id":52302,"date":"2026-05-14T21:00:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/?p=52302"},"modified":"2026-05-14T21:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:08:10","slug":"french-avoir-and-savoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/french-avoir-and-savoir\/","title":{"rendered":"French: avoir and savoir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>Self-tutoring about French irregular verbs: the tutor compares a couple.<\/h2>\n<p>\nThe following is according to my understanding.<\/p>\n<p>\nLearners of French, like myself, might look for patterns among irregular verbs. Some irregular, yet similar verbs follow similar patterns. What about avoir (to have) and savoir (to know)?\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIn present indicative, avoir and savoir aren&#8217;t very similar, except perhaps with nous and vous. Avoir goes like this: j&#8217;ai, tu as, il\/elle a, nous avons, vous avez, ils\/elles ont. Savoir goes je\/tu sais, il\/elle sait, nous savons, vous savez, ils\/elles savent. One might see a little more of the -ir tendency with savoir than avoir.<\/p>\n<p>\nWith pass&eacute; compos&eacute;, avoir is, for instance, j&#8217;ai eu (I had), while savoir is j&#8217;ai su (I knew). The one might help recall the other, it seems.<\/p>\n<p>\nWith the present subjunctive, avoir and savoir are notably different. With avoir, it&#8217;s j&#8217;aie, tu aies, il\/elle ait, nous ayons, vous ayez, ils\/elles aient &#8211; totally unpredictable. On the other hand, with savoir, it&#8217;s je sache, tu saches, il\/elle sache, nous sachions, vous sachiez, ils\/elles sachent. So, avoir doesn&#8217;t predict savoir, in this context. Moreover, once someone knows savoir&#8217;s subjunctive stem is sach-, it behaves pretty predictably.<\/p>\n<p>\nYet, for imparfait, future and conditional, avoir and savoir have helpful similarities. For imparfait, it&#8217;s, for example, j&#8217;avais (I was having) and  je savais (I was knowing). For future, it&#8217;s j&#8217;aurai (I will have) and je saurai (I will know), while for conditional it&#8217;s j&#8217;aurais (I would have), and je saurais (I would know).<\/p>\n<p>\nInteresting, eh?<\/p>\n<p>\nSource:<\/p>\n<p>\nKenney, M., Burville, V., Hickox, B., Hill, J., Potter, C. (1977). <em>Passeport Fran&ccedil;ais 8: Bonne Chance!<\/em> D.C. Heath Canada Ltd.<\/p>\nJack of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\">Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Self-tutoring about French irregular verbs: the tutor compares a couple. The following is according to my understanding. Learners of French, like myself, might look for patterns among irregular verbs. Some irregular, yet similar verbs follow similar patterns. What about avoir &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/french-avoir-and-savoir\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">French: avoir and savoir<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4193],"class_list":["post-52302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-french","tag-irregular-verbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52302"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52320,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52302\/revisions\/52320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}