Aller + Infinitif: pas de 'à'

If you have ever said je vais à voyager, elle va à dormir, or on va à manger, you have made the most common transfer error from English in beginner French. The English construction I am going to leave puts a to between going and leave, and anglophones automatically reach for à in French to fill that to slot. But the French futur proche — aller + infinitive — has no preposition at all. I am going to leave is simply je vais partir. Three words. No à.

This page exists because the error is so frequent and so persistent. It comes from a perfectly reasonable analogy that just happens to be wrong, and stamping it out requires understanding both why French does it this way and when aller really does take à (because it does — just not before an infinitive in the futur proche).

The rule, stated bluntly

Aller + infinitive = futur proche. No preposition. Ever.

That is the entire rule. Je vais partir. Tu vas dormir. Il va arriver. Nous allons manger. Vous allez voir. Ils vont comprendre. In every case, aller (conjugated for the subject) sits next to the infinitive of the main verb with nothing in between.

Compare these correct French sentences to the anglophone error pattern, where the learner inserts an à that does not belong there.

Why French does it this way

The futur proche has its own internal logic. The verb aller in this construction is not the verb of motion to go — it is a grammatical auxiliary that marks futurity. Auxiliary verbs in French (and in most languages) attach directly to the main verb without a preposition: you say j'ai mangé (I have eaten — avoir + past participle, no preposition), je suis parti (I have left — être + past participle, no preposition), je dois partir (I must leave — devoir + infinitive, no preposition), je peux venir (I can come — pouvoir + infinitive, no preposition), je veux dormir (I want to sleep — vouloir + infinitive, no preposition).

The futur proche fits exactly into this pattern. Aller + infinitive is structurally identical to devoir + infinitive or pouvoir + infinitive: a tense-or-mood-bearing auxiliary followed by a bare infinitive.

This explains why English I am going to leave differs from French je vais partir: English forces a to before any infinitive, including after going used as an auxiliary. French infinitives don't take a marker word — partir is already the infinitive form, the -ir ending does the job that English to does. Adding à would be like English saying I will to leave or I must to leave. It is one preposition too many.

When aller DOES take à

The trouble is that aller really does combine with à in many other situations. The error is not "never use aller à" — it is "never use aller à before an infinitive in the futur proche." Below are the legitimate uses of aller à, all of which are the verb of motion to go, not the auxiliary.

Aller à + place

When aller keeps its literal meaning — physical motion to a destination — à introduces the place.

Here à contracts to au before le and aux before les — au cinéma, aux toilettes, au marché. None of these involve an infinitive. They are all aller + à + noun.

Aller à + person (with care)

Aller à quelqu'un is rare and usually means to suit someone (figurative): cette robe te va à merveille (that dress suits you wonderfully). For physical movement to a person, French uses aller chez + person or aller voir + person, not aller à.

Aller à + event or activity (as a noun)

Going to an activity treated as a noun also uses à: aller au concert, aller au match, aller au travail, aller à la fête, aller à un mariage. Note the à — it introduces a noun (concert, match, travail, fête), not an infinitive.

The contrast that catches anglophones: je vais à la danse (I'm going to the dance — à + noun danse) versus je vais danser (I'm going to dance — aller + infinitive danser, no à). Same English translation, completely different French structure.

Other verbs of motion + infinitive: also no preposition

The same pattern extends to other verbs of motion when used in the go-and-do sense. Venir (come), partir (leave), passer (drop by), descendre (go down), monter (go up), sortir (go out), rentrer (go home), retourner (go back), courir (run) all take a bare infinitive when expressing the purpose of the motion.

In all these cases, anglophones often try to insert pour (literal to of purpose), producing ❌ je sors pour fumer, ❌ viens pour manger. The pour is wrong — French already builds the purpose into the bare-infinitive structure. Pour before the infinitive is grammatical only when you really want to emphasize purpose against expectation, e.g. je suis venu pour t'aider, pas pour critiquer (I came to help you, not to criticize).

Aller chercher: the special pair

Aller chercher is the French way to say to go get or to fetch. It is two verbs sitting side by side with no preposition: aller (to go) + chercher (to look for). The structure is the same bare-infinitive pattern as the futur proche, but it is not the futur proche — both verbs keep their full meaning. Anglophones often put à between them.

The same applies to aller voir (go see), aller faire (go do), aller dire (go tell), aller demander (go ask), and any other aller + verb pair where the second verb specifies the activity.

When the futur proche overlaps with motion

Sometimes a sentence can be read either as futur proche or as motion + purpose, and both readings are correct French. Je vais manger can mean either I am going to eat (futur proche, soon) or I am going (somewhere) to eat (literal motion). Context disambiguates. Either way, no à.

This overlap is part of why the futur proche in French feels less like a separate tense and more like a natural extension of the motion verb. There is no firm boundary; the aller covers a continuum from literal motion to purely temporal future.

The futur proche in context

Beyond the no-à rule, you should know how the futur proche behaves overall, because that anchors the no-à part in something larger.

Function: the futur proche expresses near-future actions, intentions, plans, and predictions based on present evidence. In spoken French it has largely taken over from the futur simple for everyday future statements. Demain je vais travailler is more natural in conversation than demain je travaillerai — the simple future feels slightly more formal or written.

Negation: the ne ... pas surrounds the conjugated aller, not the infinitive. Je ne vais pas partir. Anglophones sometimes try je vais ne pas partir, but that is wrong — the negation always wraps the auxiliary in compound and periphrastic tenses.

Pronouns: object pronouns sit before the infinitive, not before aller. Je vais le faire (I'm going to do it) — le attaches to faire, not to vais. This contrasts with the passé composé, where pronouns precede the auxiliary (je l'ai fait).

The deeper logic: pronouns in French always cluster around the verb that governs their meaning. The infinitive is what le, la, les, lui, leur refer to in je vais le faire — le is the object of faire, not of aller. So the pronouns sit next to faire.

Common Mistakes

The fastest cure: every time you say or write a futur proche, run a mental check — aller + infinitive, no preposition. After a few weeks of conscious checking, the no-à version starts to feel correct on its own, and the à you used to insert reflexively will feel as wrong as I will to leave feels in English.