Learn Hardcore French: Je veux retrouver mes amis en ville ce soir. - I want to meet up with my friends in the city tonight.

In dictionaries, retrouver is often given as to find again, but in everyday French it also very commonly means to meet up with someone you already know.

In Je veux retrouver mes amis en ville ce soir, retrouver means:

to meet up with / to get together with my friends (usually planned or expected)

So you are not saying you lost your friends and need to locate them physically; you’re saying you want to meet them (again), typically by arrangement.

Could I say Je veux rencontrer mes amis instead? What is the difference between retrouver and rencontrer?

You can say Je veux rencontrer mes amis, but it usually does not mean the same thing.

retrouver quelqu’un
- meet up with someone you already know
- often planned
- like to meet up with, to catch up with
rencontrer quelqu’un
- meet someone (often for the first time), or meet by chance
- like to meet, to run into

So:

Je veux retrouver mes amis en ville ce soir.
→ I want to meet up with my friends in town tonight. (I already know them.)
Je veux rencontrer de nouveaux amis.
→ I want to meet new friends. (People I don’t know yet.)

If you say Je veux rencontrer mes amis, it can sound odd, a bit like I want to (first) meet my friends, as if you don’t know them yet. For existing friends, retrouver is the natural verb.

Why is it Je veux retrouver and not something like Je vais retrouver if it’s about the future (tonight)?

French often uses the present tense with a time expression to talk about the near future. The time expression ce soir (tonight / this evening) shows it is about the future.

Je veux retrouver mes amis en ville ce soir.
→ Literally: I want to meet up with my friends in town this evening.
The action is in the future, but the wanting is now.

If you say:

Je vais retrouver mes amis en ville ce soir.

that shifts the focus:

Je veux retrouver… → emphasizes your desire / intention.
Je vais retrouver… → emphasizes that it is planned / going to happen.

Both are correct; they just highlight different things.

What is the difference between Je veux retrouver mes amis and Je voudrais / J’aimerais retrouver mes amis?

All are grammatically correct, but they differ in tone and politeness:

Je veux retrouver mes amis…
- very direct: I want to meet up with my friends…
- neutral in many casual contexts, but can sound a bit strong or demanding if used to ask for something.
Je voudrais retrouver mes amis…
- conditional form: more polite and softer
- like I would like to meet up with my friends…
J’aimerais retrouver mes amis…
- also a polite, softer way
- often a bit more emotional: I would love / I’d like to meet up with my friends…

Among friends you’ll hear Je veux… all the time. When speaking to strangers, superiors, or in more formal situations, Je voudrais… or J’aimerais… is more courteous.

How is vouloir conjugated in the present tense? Where does veux come from?

Veux is the first person singular (and also second person singular) of the verb vouloir (to want) in the present tense.

Present tense of vouloir:

je veux – I want
tu veux – you want (informal, singular)
il / elle / on veut – he / she / one wants
nous voulons – we want
vous voulez – you want (formal singular or plural)
ils / elles veulent – they want

So Je veux retrouver mes amis… literally means I want to meet up with my friends…

Why is it en ville and not à la ville or dans la ville?

En ville is a fixed, very common expression meaning:

in town, downtown, in the city (area)

It talks about the general urban area, not a specific city as a geographical point.

en ville
- idiomatic: in town / downtown
- used for going to/being in the built‑up area, shops, cafés, etc.
- Je vais en ville. → I’m going into town.

À la ville and dans la ville are much less common in this everyday sense:

à la ville
- can appear in some fixed contrasts like à la ville / à la campagne (in town / in the countryside), but not typically for let’s meet in town.
dans la ville
- more literal: inside the city (limits)
- used when you really mean inside that specific city in contrast to outside it.

For normal Let’s meet in town, you should use en ville.

Can ce soir go in a different place in the sentence?

Yes. Ce soir (tonight / this evening) is a time expression and is quite flexible in position. All of these are possible:

Je veux retrouver mes amis en ville ce soir.
Ce soir, je veux retrouver mes amis en ville.
Je veux, ce soir, retrouver mes amis en ville. (more formal / written style)

The most natural, everyday version is the original:

Je veux retrouver mes amis en ville ce soir.

Placing ce soir at the very start (Ce soir, je veux…) adds a little emphasis on tonight.

If I replace mes amis with a pronoun, where does it go? For example: I want to meet them in town tonight.

Mes amis is a direct object (whom do I want to meet up with? my friends), so you use the direct object pronoun les (them).

With a verb like vouloir followed by an infinitive (retrouver), object pronouns go before the infinitive, not before vouloir.

Je veux retrouver mes amis en ville ce soir.
Je veux les retrouver en ville ce soir. → I want to meet them in town tonight.

Structure:

Je veux
- les
  - retrouver
    - en ville
      - ce soir
        (subject) (verb 1) (object pronoun) (infinitive) (place) (time)

Why amis and not amies? How does gender work with friends in French?

French marks both gender and number on nouns and adjectives.

un ami – a (male) friend
une amie – a (female) friend
des amis – friends (all male or mixed group)
des amies – friends (all female)

In mes amis:

mes = my (for plural nouns)
amis = plural masculine, which is also used for a mixed group (males + females).

So mes amis can mean:

my male friends
my mixed group of male and female friends

You only use mes amies if the group is entirely female and you want to highlight that fact.

Could I use a different noun instead of amis, like copains? Does it change the meaning?

Yes, you can, and it slightly changes the tone/register.

amis
- standard, neutral, can be slightly more formal or serious
- mes amis = my friends
copains / copines
- more informal / colloquial
- mes copains (masculine or mixed group)
- mes copines (all female friends)
- often used for buddies, mates, classmates, etc.

So:

Je veux retrouver mes amis en ville ce soir.
→ neutral: I want to meet up with my friends in town tonight.
Je veux retrouver mes copains en ville ce soir.
→ a bit more casual: I want to meet up with my buddies in town tonight.