Naître — to be born | French Verb Chart

🇬🇧 Naître: one tense does almost all the living

Naître — to be born — is the rare verb whose usage is 95% one form: je suis né(e). Être, agreement, done — « je suis né en 1990 », « elle est née à Lyon », « ils sont nés en mars » — the biography tense every introduction and form eventually asks for. The living paradigm exists (je nais, il naît with the circumflex-before-t of the connaître family; futur je naîtrai; literary passé simple il naquit — the tense of every French biography’s first line), but conversation needs the birth certificate form and little else. For completeness, the full present of this irregular French verb: je nais, tu nais, il naît, nous naissons, vous naissez, ils naissent — the -ss- plural stem that also feeds the imparfait (il naissait) and subjunctive (que je naisse), worth a line in any conjugation table even if the passé composé does the talking. Its mirror is mourir: naître and mourir bracket the être-verb list like bookends — born and died, the two grammatical certainties.

The family and figures: renaître (to be reborn — la renaissance is its noun, art history included), the adjective-participle né in prose (« née Dupont » — maiden names; « un musicien né » — a born musician), and the figurative births French likes: « un projet est né », « une amitié naît » (friendships get the present tense; people rarely do). Practical grammar for YOUR paperwork: date first, place second — « je suis née le 3 mai 1995 à Bordeaux » — with the feminine -e for female speakers, one of the few moments spoken French makes agreement audible in your own biography. Master that sentence plus « où êtes-vous né(e) ? » and this chart has done its life’s work.