Conjugation of fer

Fer covers both English “do” and “make,” but its real importance comes from a much larger network: weather (fa fred), elapsed time (fa dos anys), causation (fer reparar la caldera), activities, and dozens of everyday collocations. Its pronominal form fer-se adds meanings such as “become,” “make oneself,” or “join.”

The verb is highly irregular but learnable through principal parts: faig anchors the present, feia the imperfect, fiu/feu the synthetic past, faré the future, faci the present subjunctive, fes the imperfect subjunctive and singular imperative, and fet all compound tenses.

Nonfinite forms

In compound tenses, fet remains invariable: les gestions que hem fet. As an adjective or passive/resultative participle it agrees: una feina ben feta; dues còpies fetes a mà. This distinction is grammatical, not optional spelling.

Indicative: simple and periphrastic tenses

The first-person faig cannot be predicted from the infinitive. Do not regularize it as fero, and never add an incoative extension such as fareixo. The imperfect is stressed on the vowel of the first syllable throughout: feia, feies, feia, fèiem, fèieu, feien. The grave accent is written in fèiem and fèieu under the ordinary accentuation rules.

Everyday completed narration uses vaig fer. The synthetic series is chiefly (formal/literary) in much Central usage and remains alive in some Valencian and Balearic communities (regional). Its third-person feu is written exactly like present second-person plural and the plural familiar imperative. Syntax resolves the ambiguity: ell feu una pausa (literary) versus vosaltres feu una pausa.

Future and conditional use the contracted stem far-, not fer-: faré, faria. This is an arbitrary historical irregularity and must simply be memorized.

Indicative: compound tenses

All compound forms use haver + fet. No object pronoun may be inserted between auxiliary and participle: ho hem fet, never hem ho fet.

The past anterior is largely (formal/literary). The periphrastic anterior forms are vaig haver fet, vas haver fet, va haver fet, vam haver fet, vau haver fet, van haver fet. In normal conversation, havia fet is much more frequent unless immediate sequence is crucial.

Subjunctive: simple and compound

The general present subjunctive has faci, facis, faci, but first- and second-person plural are fem, feu, identical to the indicative. The surrounding clause tells you the mood: Sé que ho feu bé asserts the fact; Vull que ho feu bé places it inside a wish. The imperfect subjunctive is built on fe(s)- and must not be confused with present imperative fes merely because some forms coincide.

Three further periphrastic rows complete the reference system. They have restricted (regional/formal) distribution; the ordinary perfect and imperfect subjunctives cover most spoken needs.

Imperative and fer-se

Affirmative commands attach weak pronouns: fes-ho, feu-ne dues, fem-li costat. Negative commands place them before the verb: no ho facis, no en feu cap. The clitic ho can replace the whole object or proposition and is exceptionally frequent with fer.

Fer-se is a genuine pronominal citation in several meanings. It expresses becoming (fer-se gran, fer-se metgessa), deliberately making something for oneself (fer-se un cafè), joining (fer-se soci), or pretending (fer-se el despistat). The pronoun changes with the subject and cannot simply be discarded when it carries these meanings.

High-frequency constructions

Impersonal fer describes weather and elapsed time: fa vent, feia calor, farà bon temps; fa tres mesos que hi treballo. It remains third-person singular because there is no referential subject. To ask about duration, Catalan commonly uses Quant fa que...?

The causative construction fer + infinitive means “make/have someone do something”: hem fet revisar l'ascensor. The caused agent may be introduced or represented by a weak pronoun according to the infinitive's argument structure; see causative fer for the full system.

Common collocations must be learned as Catalan units: fer feina “work,” fer esport “exercise,” fer una pregunta “ask a question,” fer una foto “take a photo,” fer cas de “pay attention to,” fer olor de “smell of,” and fer costat a “support.” The governed prepositions are not interchangeable: fer cas de l'avís, not fer cas a l'avís in the standard collocation.

(Regional: Balearic) standard forms include faç for first-person present and feim, feis for fem, feu; the short imperative fe also occurs. (Regional: Valencian) present subjunctive is faça, faces, faça, fem, feu, facen, with imperfect fera... also available. These are regional paradigms, not spelling mistakes. General faig, fem, feu, faci is understood throughout the Catalan-speaking area.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

Remember faig, feia, feu, faré, faci, fes, and fet. Use vaig fer for the ordinary conversational past and recognize fiu/feu in (formal/literary) narration. The present subjunctive unexpectedly has general-standard fem and feu in the plural. Keep the pronoun in lexical fer-se, and learn weather, elapsed-time, causative, and collocational uses as constructions rather than forcing English “do” and “make” onto every context.