De vs À with Verbs Before an Infinitive

When you string two French verbs together — I want to leave, I started to understand, I forgot to call — the second verb sits in the infinitive (partir, comprendre, appeler). The question is what, if anything, links the two. French gives you three answers, and you do not get to choose: the choice is set by the first verb.

• Nothing — Je veux partir. (I want to leave.)
• De — J'ai oublié de partir. (I forgot to leave.)
• À — J'ai commencé à partir. (I started to leave.)

There is no rule that lets you derive the link from meaning. Décider takes de, commencer takes à; vouloir takes nothing, avoir envie takes de. This page gives you the high-frequency verbs sorted into the three groups, the patterns that make the lists less random than they look, and the cases where two prepositions are both possible.

Group 1: bare infinitive (zero link)

A small but extremely high-frequency set of verbs takes a bare infinitive — no preposition between the conjugated verb and the infinitive. Most of them belong to one of three semantic clusters: liking and wanting, ability and obligation, or motion and perception.

The motion verbs (aller, venir, partir, etc.) deserve a special note: when followed by an infinitive, they express purpose — going somewhere to do something. Je vais chercher du pain is "I'm going to get some bread" (purpose), not "I'm going while getting bread." This is fully parallel to English "go and get," "come and see," with the conjunction omitted in French.

The perception verbs (voir, entendre, sentir) take an infinitive where English often uses -ing: Je l'ai vu partir (I saw him leave / leaving). The infinitive's subject (the perceived agent) sits as a direct object of the perception verb.

Group 2: verbs taking de + infinitive

This is by a wide margin the largest group. If you do not know which preposition a verb takes, the statistical guess is de. Within this group, several semantic clusters cover most of the high-frequency verbs.

Verbs of decision and intention

Verbs of beginning, ending, stopping

The construction venir de + infinitive is the standard French way of saying "to have just done something" — a near-past with no English single-verb equivalent. Je viens de finir (I just finished) describes an action completed moments ago.

Verbs of memory, omission, regret

Verbs with adjective + de + infinitive

A high-frequency pattern: the verb être (or another linking verb) plus an emotion-adjective takes de before the infinitive. The same pattern works with avoir + abstract noun.

Group 3: verbs taking à + infinitive

The third group is smaller than the de group but still substantial. Many of these verbs share a sense of direction toward an action: starting toward it, working toward it, persisting toward it, helping someone toward it. This semantic thread is loose, but it gives the à group a slight orientation toward goals and progressions.

Verbs of beginning and progression

The contrast between commencer à and se mettre à is subtle but real: commencer describes a beginning in a neutral, gradual sense; se mettre à implies a sudden, decisive shift. Compare Il a commencé à pleuvoir (it began to rain) with Il s'est mis à pleuvoir (it started pouring all of a sudden).

Verbs of learning, teaching, helping

Verbs of effort and success

The verb tenir à deserves attention: it expresses strong personal investment in the action — much stronger than vouloir. Je tiens à venir means "I really want to come, it matters to me." A native French speaker reading the English "I'm keen to" or "I really want to" will often render it with tenir à.

Verbs of mental orientation

Note: penser à + infinitif means "to remember to" or "to think of doing," not "to think about" in the sense of pondering. For "I'm thinking about leaving," French uses je pense partir (no preposition) or je songe à partir — the à version of penser is closer to don't forget.

When both à and de are possible

A handful of verbs accept either à or de with a barely perceptible difference in meaning. Modern usage treats them as essentially interchangeable, with regional and stylistic preferences:

• commencer à / commencer de — à is overwhelmingly more common in modern French; de survives in literary or careful written style.
• continuer à / continuer de — both fully alive in modern usage; de is slightly more formal.
• s'efforcer à / s'efforcer de — de is now standard; à is rare and old-fashioned.

A few verbs change meaning depending on the preposition. The classic example is décider:

• décider de + inf = to decide to do something (the standard "decide to")
• se décider à + inf = to make up one's mind to do something (after hesitation)

Another example is demander:

• demander à + inf = to ask (for permission) to do something yourself
• demander à qqn de + inf = to ask someone to do something

A note on register and formal versus spoken French

The à/de choice is largely the same in formal and spoken French, but some literary verbs (s'aviser de, s'enhardir à, s'obstiner à) appear almost exclusively in writing, while spoken French freely uses high-frequency verbs like arriver à, finir de, commencer à. Do not let textbook lists of literary verbs distract you from the working core: roughly thirty à-verbs and forty de-verbs cover almost everything you will say or read at the B1–B2 level.

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: Using à with verbs that take de (or vice versa).

Mistake 2: Inserting a preposition where French wants none.

Mistake 3: Treating English "to + verb" as if it always required a preposition in French.

(The à form is found in 19th-century literature but sounds bizarrely old-fashioned in modern usage.)

Mistake 4: Confusing commencer à (start to) with commencer par (start by).

Mistake 5: Forgetting that avoir + abstract noun phrases take de.

Key takeaways

• French verbs followed by an infinitive take nothing, de, or à. The choice is set by the first verb and must be memorised.
• Bare infinitive: modal and aspectual verbs (vouloir, pouvoir, devoir, savoir), liking verbs (aimer, adorer, préférer), motion verbs (aller, venir), and a few others.
• De
  • infinitive is the largest group: decision verbs (décider, refuser), ending verbs (finir, arrêter), memory verbs (oublier), and the entire avoir/être
    • emotion construction (avoir envie de, être content de).
• À
  • infinitive concentrates around progression and effort: commencer à, apprendre à, réussir à, aider à, hésiter à, tenir à.
• Some verbs accept both prepositions (commencer à/de) with little difference; a few change meaning (décider de vs. se décider à).
• The single best learning strategy is to memorise each verb together with its preposition, as a single lexical unit: commencer-à, décider-de, vouloir-Ø.