French keyword: 'faire'

The verb faire is a commonly occurring verb. In our sample of French literature, the present tense form fait is the second most commonly occurring verb form (second to est).

Generally speaking, faire covers much of the scope of both English do and make, including when these verbs have more 'functional' or auxiliary uses. However, there are some particular cases where an idiomatic English translation uses other verbs, including uses as an auxiliary where English uses verbs such as have or help.

By 'lexical' uses, we mean cases where the verb faire is used as the 'main' verb of the sentence and implies a particular action; we'll contrast this type of usage with functional or auxiliary uses where, for example, it stands in for another implied verb, or is involved in a construction with another verb which functions more as the 'main verb'.

The make sense

When it implies a 'constructing' action (and possible French synonyms are often construire, créer, bâtir, préparer etc), then make is often an idiomatic English translation:

Note that there's sometimes a little bit of overlap even in English: in the last of these cases, shall I do you a coffee? would also be possible.

The do sense

Just like English do, the French verb faire can be the main verb in a sentence with the notion of 'generally carry out an activity'.

Occasionally, an alternative verb is common in English whereas faire remains the most common verb in French. For example, in the first example here, it would be common to say he plays a lot of sport. (In French, an alternative would be il pratique beaucoup de sport but this is apparently much less common: a mere 50 hits on Google as opposed to around 5,000 for faire. On the other hand, a comparable search suggests that plays is roughly twice as common as does in English.)

In the sense of play, act, act as

In French, faire is used with theatrical roles. The usual English translation in this sense is with play, act, act as, serve as (in the case of inanimates) or even simply be:

Notice the following use of faire with measurements. In English, the verbs measure or simply be would be common translations:

With prices, faire carries the notion of fetch. Informally, it is also a common way of asking the price of something.

faire qch de qch

Note the following case where English uses the preposition with, whereas French uses a noun phrase with de, or the clitic en.

By functional uses, we mean cases where faire is used in a way that "enhances" another verb, where it can't stand on its own as the main verb in the sentence.

The verb faire repeating or standing for another specific verb

It is very common in English for do to serve to 'repeat' a previously-specified verb. Often in French, it is more common simply to repeat the verb, or to omit the verb entirely. For example:

However, it is occasionally possible to use faire in this type of 'substitution'. One type of case is when a comparison is involved. In this case, the so-called 'expletive ne' appears before the verb faire:

The construction ne faire que... is equivalent to English to do nothing but...:

The phrase le faire can be used to mean 'do it', similarly to English, but note that a possible translation is to omit the 'it' in English:

The expression "faites, je vous en prie!" is similar to English "Please, go ahead!" or "Please do!".

Causative faire + infinitive

A common construction in French involves faire directly followed by an infinitive. This is sometimes called a causative construction: the idea is that the subject of the sentence "causes" the object to carry out the action of the infinitive. A common translation in English is make, have or get (as in get sb to do sth) if there is some element of 'forcing' or involuntary action involved; otherwise, let or sometimes help are common translations. In some cases, a phrasal version of these verbs such as let in, help across etc is a more idiomatic translation.

Notice that when the infinitive has a direct object, the person being made to perform the action is represented by the pronoun lui, or with à plus noun.

Sometimes these sentences are slightly ambiguous as to whether the meaning is 'letting' or 'making'. For example, a possible interpretation of the last sentence would be I made the baby eat a biscuit.

In French, the infinitive after faire can be interpreted as passive. This is equivalent to an English sentence such as I had the car repaired. Notice the difference in translation in the following depending on whether the agent (person carrying out the action of the infinitive) is specified:

Note that it isn't grammatical to put causative faire in the passive. So the following aren't possible in French:

In these cases, the equivalent to the English passive would be a sentence such as on l'a fait pleurer for he was made to cry.

For more detailed (and technical) information on the syntax of causatives in French, see [ROWLETT2007:168ff].