How to Learn Vous When Beginning French

Vous as a pronoun is used in two ways. It can mean either 'you', or 'you all'.

It's the least used pronoun, so don't worry too much about learning the conjugations.

Vous as 'You'

When used to mean 'you', vous is a sign of respect. Although it's use is dropping it is still a cornerstone of French culture and is used in professional situations and casual situations alike.

Do not learn to use vous in this way. No one is going to penalise you for using tu instead of vous. As you progress in the language you can start to pick up it's use through observation, but for the moment only focus on using vous for 'you all'.


Vous as 'You All'

Vous also mean's 'you all'. Use this when you are referring to a group of people you are with. Par example:

What do you all think of this?
Qu'est ce que vous pensez de ca? 

What do you all play?
Qu'est ce que vous jouez?

It's suprising how infrequently you use vous to mean this. If you're with a group then normally you talk about yourselves, using we. Example:

What shall we do?
Qu'est ce qu'on va faire?

Where are we going?
On-va ou?

Notice the use of on.

Often you don't ask questions to a whole group, usually you just focus on individuals. So instead of asking what is all your favourite bands, you'll probably just talk to one person and ask him/ her what is your favourite band.

This is the only way you should use vous as a beginner.

To start with only learn the vous conjugatons of these verbs:

What to Learn

Avoir	To have	Avez
Devoir	To have to	Devez
Être	To be	Êtes
Pouvoir	To be able to (can)	Pouvez
Savoir	To know	Savez

Tip

Using those five conjugations helps use talk about the past. If you swap vous for je with those conjugations (except êtes) you get the past tense*. You all know becomes I knew. You all must becomes I had to. Can you all becomes I could.

In fact, if you swap vous for tu/ il/ elle/ on/ ils and elles you have the past tense for all of those verbs. The spelling is different, but the pronounciation is the same. Pouvais = pouvait = pouvaisent = pouvez

Use these handles to make talking in the past tense easy. You can chuck on any infinitive to the end and you have a decent sentence. Par example:

Je pouvais courir
I could run

Je deveais courir
I had to run

Il devait courir
He had to run

Il savais venir
Hw knew to come

Ils savaient venir (remmebre the silent ent)
They knew to come

Je savais venir
I knew to come


*They are pronounced the same but spelled different.