À vs De avec les Verbes + Infinitif

When a French verb is followed by another verb, three things can happen. The first verb either takes à before the infinitive (je commence à comprendre), takes de (j'essaie de comprendre), or takes nothing at all (je peux comprendre). Which one happens is determined by the first verb — there is no pattern based on meaning that will tell you in advance. Commencer takes à; finir takes de. Apprendre à nager but décider de nager. Aimer nager with no preposition at all. The choice has to be memorized verb by verb.

This is one of the most painful topics in French for English speakers, because English does not have anything quite like it. I started to swim, I decided to swim, I want to swim — English uses to in all three cases, or simply nothing (I want swim is wrong, but I can swim takes no preposition at all). French splits these into three different patterns, and the splits don't line up with any English logic.

The good news: the high-frequency verbs are a closed list of maybe 40 items. Once you've memorized that list, you've covered 95% of what you'll ever need.

The three patterns at a glance

Consider one English sentence rendered three ways:

• Je commence à apprendre. (I start learning.) — commencer takes à
• J'essaie d'apprendre. (I try to learn.) — essayer takes de
• Je veux apprendre. (I want to learn.) — vouloir takes nothing

The infinitive (apprendre) is identical in all three sentences. What changes is the preposition that links it to the first verb, and that preposition is a property of the first verb — not of the meaning, not of the situation, not of anything you can predict.

Verbs that take à + infinitive

These verbs link to the next infinitive with à. The list is not random — it tends toward verbs of beginning, continuation, effort toward a goal, invitation, and commitment — but the meaning correlation is too weak to be a reliable rule. Memorize the verbs.

Verbs that take de + infinitive

These verbs link with de. The list tends toward verbs of decision, completion, stopping, avoidance, emotion, and constructions with avoir / être + adjective. Again, the correlation with meaning is too loose to be a rule.

A large family of avoir / être + adjective expressions also takes de:

• avoir besoin de + inf — J'ai besoin de dormir.
• avoir envie de + inf — J'ai envie de partir.
• avoir peur de + inf — J'ai peur de tomber.
• avoir le droit de + inf — Tu as le droit de refuser.
• avoir l'intention de + inf — J'ai l'intention de l'appeler.
• être content de + inf — Je suis content de te voir.
• être heureux de + inf — Elle est heureuse de venir.
• être désolé de + inf — Je suis désolé de te déranger.

Verbs that take no preposition (modal-like verbs)

A small group of verbs links directly to the infinitive with no preposition. This group includes the modals (verbs of ability, wanting, obligation), the verbs of perception (seeing, hearing), and a few others.

"À" with a person, "de" before the infinitive

Some verbs combine two prepositions: à introduces a person, de introduces what they do. The most common pattern is demander à quelqu'un de faire — ask someone to do.

• demander à qqn de + inf — Je lui demande de venir.
• dire à qqn de + inf — Dis-lui de m'appeler.
• conseiller à qqn de + inf — Je te conseille de partir.
• promettre à qqn de + inf — Je te promets de revenir.
• proposer à qqn de + inf — Il m'a proposé de venir.
• permettre à qqn de + inf — Elle me permet de sortir.
• défendre à qqn de + inf — On lui défend de fumer.

The pattern is consistent: the person takes à (and is replaced by lui / leur in the pronoun form), and the action takes de.

Why this matters: this is the topic that betrays a non-native speaker

Native French speakers do not think about this. The preposition is fused with the verb, and they produce commencer à or essayer de without any conscious choice. Learners, on the other hand, hesitate at every juncture and often produce wrong combinations: je commence de comprendre, j'essaie à comprendre, je veux à comprendre. These are the kinds of errors that immediately mark a speaker as non-native, even when the rest of the sentence is fluent.

There is no logical shortcut — you have to memorize which verbs take à, which take de, and which take neither. The lists above cover the verbs you'll meet in the first two years of French, and the avoir besoin de / avoir envie de / avoir peur de family covers a huge fraction of casual conversation. Drill these, and the problem mostly evaporates.

How English compares

English speakers tend to translate to + infinitive into French as either à + infinitive (because à sounds like to) or as no preposition at all (because I want to go = je veux aller). Both intuitions are wrong as general rules:

• I decide to leave — French uses de, not à. Je décide de partir.
• I help him to swim — French uses à. Je l'aide à nager.
• I want to swim — French uses nothing. Je veux nager.

There is no English-French correspondence. The preposition is a French verb property and has to be learned with the verb itself.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• The preposition (à, de, or none) is a property of the first verb, not of the meaning.
• The "no preposition" group is small and high-frequency: pouvoir, vouloir, devoir, savoir, aimer, préférer, espérer, falloir, aller, venir, voir, entendre, laisser, faire, oser. Memorize these as a unit.
• à tends to mark beginnings, continuations, and effort toward a goal; de tends to mark decisions, endings, and emotions — but treat these as memory hooks, not reliable rules.
• The demander à qqn de faire family combines both prepositions: à for the person, de for the action.
• Make a personal list of the dozen verbs you use most often and drill the preposition until it's automatic.