De + Infinitif vs Que + Subjonctif

The previous page established the headline rule: same subject takes infinitive, different subjects take que + finite verb. But there is a refinement that catches almost every learner. A large family of French verbs and adjectives takes de before the infinitive — not a bare infinitive. Décider de partir, not décider partir. Être content de venir, not être content venir. The same-subject rule still applies, but the linker is de, not nothing. Then, when the subjects differ, the construction switches from de + infinitive to que + subjunctive. This page covers the verbs and adjectives that follow this dual pattern, and drills the matched contrasts that distinguish the two complement types.

The core pattern

The rule has the same shape as the bare-infinitive rule, but with de inserted as the linker.

Same subject → de + infinitive. When the embedded subject matches the main subject, the linker is de and the verb is in the infinitive.

Different subjects → que + subjunctive. When the subjects differ, de disappears, que appears, and the verb takes the subjunctive (because most verbs in this family — emotion, will, fear — trigger subjunctive).

(Note: décider que is rarer than the same-subject décider de + infinitive, and when used with different subjects often takes indicative if asserting a decision about a fact. With true volitional decisions about another person, French speakers more often switch to vouloir que + subjonctif or use a noun-phrase complement.)

Why the de appears

In French, the infinitive is a verbal noun, and many verbs that take a "thing" complement do so via the preposition de (as in parler de quelque chose, avoir besoin de quelque chose). When the "thing" is itself a verbal action, French uses de + infinitif. This is the same logic by which avoir besoin de pain (need bread, a noun) and avoir besoin de manger (need to eat, a verbal complement) share the same de — the infinitive slots into the same syntactic position as a noun. English speakers expect a bare to-infinitive in both cases ("I decided to leave"), but French distinguishes the bare infinitive (vouloir partir) from the de-linked infinitive (décider de partir) lexically.

The consequence: there is no logical shortcut for predicting which French verb takes which preposition. You must memorize them. Below is the high-frequency core, organized by semantic type.

Verbs of decision and effort

These take de + infinitive in the same-subject case and rarely surface in different-subject que-clauses. When they do, the construction often shifts mood or paraphrases.

décider de — to decide to.

essayer de — to try to.

Note that essayer que is virtually nonexistent. To express "try to make X happen," French paraphrases with faire en sorte que + subjonctif or essayer de faire en sorte que.

oublier de — to forget to (do something).

Contrast: oublier que + indicative means "to forget the fact that," a different sense.

réussir à — note the à here, not de. The reason is purely lexical: réussir takes à. The same-subject pattern still applies.

Verbs and expressions of emotion

This is the most productive family for the de / que alternation. All of these take de + infinitive same-subject and que + subjunctive different-subject. The subjunctive is triggered by the emotional content.

être content / heureux / ravi / fier de — to be happy / glad / proud to.

être triste / déçu / désolé / fâché de — to be sad / disappointed / sorry / angry to.

regretter de — to regret (doing something).

avoir peur de — to be afraid to / of doing.

A subtle point with avoir peur que: French traditionally inserts a ne explétif before the subjunctive verb in formal registers — j'ai peur qu'il ne soit en retard — without negating the meaning. This ne is optional in informal speech but required in careful writing. It does not mean "not"; it is purely a formal-register grammatical residue.

avoir envie de — to feel like / want to.

être désolé de — to be sorry to.

Verbs of obligation and merit

mériter de — to deserve to.

accepter de / refuser de — to accept / refuse to.

permettre de / interdire de — to allow / forbid (used absolutely, with same subject implied).

For these, the more common pattern with a specific other-subject is permettre à quelqu'un de + infinitive ("permit someone to do X"), which is itself a different construction:

Adjectival expressions: être + adjective + de

The pattern extends to most adjectives that describe an emotional, evaluative, or modal stance toward an action.

Two notes on this table.

Impersonal expressions like il est important de / que. These can take either form, with de + infinitive signaling a general statement (no specific subject implied) and que + subjunctive targeting a specific subject.

Adjectives that don't allow a que-clause. Some adjectives (capable, libre, incapable) lexically take only de + infinitive. To express the same idea about another subject, you reword the sentence — typically with a different verb.

To say "I think she's capable of succeeding," you reword: je crois qu'elle est capable de réussir. The capable itself does not host a que-clause.

Drilled contrasts

Match each pair to see the de / que alternation in action.

The negation in de + infinitive clauses pre-poses both negation particles before the infinitive — de ne pas pouvoir — which differs from the surrounding-style negation of finite clauses. This is its own small rule but easy to spot once you've seen it a few times.

Common Mistakes

The decision tree is mechanical: identify the matrix verb or adjective, look up its preposition (de, à, or none), check whether the subjects match, and either use the linker + infinitive (same subject) or que + subjunctive (different subjects, for emotion/will/fear verbs). Once you have memorized the prepositional slot for the high-frequency verbs in this family, the rest of the construction follows mechanically and you will avoid the bulk of the syntax errors that surface in B1 written work.