French Voir, Coire, and Boire

The irregular verbs boire, croire, and voir have similar conjugations. Pay attention to their forms in the present tense.

As Units progress, you will learn more and more irregular verbs. These three verbs – voir, croire, and boire – meaning “to see,” “to believe,” and “to drink,” respectively are all conjugated similarly. Below are the three conjugation tables for these verbs in the present tense. The other resources linked in this module will review these verbs separately.

*When you talk about drinking, you have to remember that we typically drink in quantities. Just like with the verb manger (to eat), we eat/drink some of something. Meaning in most contexts, we should use the partitive article, de, following these verbs. Review the partitive article in A1.1 Module 9. You will read and practice example sentences with boire in this module.

Notice the similarities between the three tables. In the first, second, third person singular, and third person plural forms, the conjugation of these three verbs begin in similar ways. The endings of each conjugation should look familiar, too. The Nous and Vous forms of these verbs need the most attention. Take a close look at how the fourth letter of Voir and Coire changes from “i” to “y” and in Boire, the third letter is a “v.”

As you learn more verbs, it’s important to see them used in context. Always take some time to review the example sentences provided and complete the short exercise provided with the module. These sentences will also help you improve your vocabulary.

Examples:

Je vois mon amie dans la rue.                        I see my friend in the street.

Tu bois du thé le matin.                                  You drink some tea every morning.

Elise croit que Mathieu aime Elizabeth.         Elise believes that Matthew loves Elizabeth.

Au bar, nous buvons de la bière.                    At the bar, we are drinking some beer.

Voyez-vous ce beau sac-à-main ?                   Do you see this beautiful purse?

Elles ne croient pas au mensonge.                 They do not believe the lie.

In Le Passé Composé, some verbs have very short irregular past participles (vu, dû, pu, bu, cru, su, lu, plu, tu). Learn how to conjugate verbs like VOIR (to see), DEVOIR (to have to), POUVOIR (to be able to), BOIRE (to drink), SAVOIR (to know), LIRE (to read), PLAIRE (to like) and TAIRE (to keep quiet) in Le Passé Composé in French.