French plans with aller and an infinitive

01 / Understand

Conjugate the first verb for the subject

The construction begins with the present tense of aller: je vais, tu vas, il va, elle va, on va, nous allons, vous allez, and ils vont or elles vont. The subject controls this verb, just as it would in an ordinary present statement. The following infinitive then supplies the action. If you change I to we, change vais to allons, while the infinitive can stay exactly the same. Conversational on often means we but still takes singular va, not allons. A polite singular vous still takes allez. These person choices are independent of how soon the action will occur. Practice with a concrete plan and change only the person at first, so you can hear which part carries agreement and which part retains its dictionary form.

02 / Understand

Keep the action in the infinitive

The second verb is an infinitive, such as parler, finir, prendre, or faire. Do not conjugate both verbs for the same subject. English going to contains the word to, but French inserts no corresponding à between the future auxiliary and its infinitive. Thus je vais parler is complete without another preposition. A spelling distinction can be hard to hear: manger and mangé often sound alike, yet one is an infinitive and the other is a past participle. This future construction requires the infinitive. When checking a written sentence, name the construction before deciding the final letters. That prevents a pronunciation similarity from turning into an arbitrary spelling choice. The action can itself be aller, producing the normal phrase je vais aller, which uses the same verb once as the helper and once as the planned action.

03 / Understand

Distinguish an action from a destination

Aller also retains its ordinary meaning of going somewhere. Je vais au marché names a destination, while je vais acheter du pain presents an action as future. The words after the verb reveal the structure: a place phrase differs from an infinitive. A sentence can combine movement and purpose, as in going to a shop to buy something, so real meanings are not always neatly isolated. The beginner distinction simply prevents the assumption that every occurrence of vais is a future helper. If the destination contains a masculine definite noun, à plus le contracts to au. That preposition belongs to the place phrase. It is not an extra word required before every infinitive. Read the entire expression after aller and identify whether it names a location, an action, or both through a longer sentence.

04 / Understand

Place the negative around aller

To deny a plan or prediction in standard written French, put ne before the conjugated form of aller and pas after it: Je ne vais pas partir. The infinitive stays after the negative group. With a vowel initial form, elision produces n’, as in Nous n’allons pas sortir. In ordinary casual speech, ne is often omitted, but this lesson practices the complete written frame. Do not put pas after the infinitive merely because English not appears near the action in your translation. Negating an infinitive itself is another construction, with a different scope, and can appear elsewhere in French. Here the intended message denies the future action as a whole. Keep that meaning explicit when comparing alternatives, because word placement can change what part of a longer sentence is being denied.

05 / Understand

Ask about a plan and answer from your viewpoint

A useful question frame is Est-ce que plus the ordinary subject and verb group. Est-ce que vous allez venir ? asks about the listener’s future action without changing the order inside vous allez venir. An intonation question with statement order is also common in conversation. The answer changes viewpoint: a person addressed as vous can reply je vais venir when speaking alone. The planned action stays the same, while the subject and helper change together. Add a time phrase when the plan would otherwise be unclear, but do not confuse that phrase with the form of the verb. Tomorrow does not choose the person ending. A negative reply can preserve the same action with the complete negative pattern. For practice, give a full reply once, then compare it with the shorter answer that would be natural in conversation.

06 / Understand

Keep pronouns with their own action

An object pronoun belonging to the infinitive normally appears immediately before that infinitive: Je vais le lire means I am going to read it. It does not ordinarily move before vais in this French construction. A reflexive action behaves similarly: Je vais me lever. The reflexive pronoun still matches the subject, so we are going to get up becomes nous allons nous lever. The repeated word nous has two jobs: the first is the subject and the second is the reflexive pronoun. Negation remains around the finite helper, as in je ne vais pas me lever. Do not attach the reflexive pronoun to the end of the infinitive as you might in another language. French writes it separately before the action verb in this construction. Begin with one pronoun before attempting more complex sequences.

07 / Understand

Understand the time label as a guide

The name near future is useful for identifying the construction, but it does not impose a fixed number of minutes, hours, or days. Speakers use it for plans and predictions connected to their current viewpoint, including events well beyond the immediate moment. The simple future also expresses future events, and the two forms overlap in many contexts. Differences can involve register, perspective, and discourse rather than a mechanical distance rule. This lesson teaches how to build the construction accurately, not how to reject every other future form. Short adverbs such as bien can appear before the infinitive: je vais bien dormir. A time phrase can clarify when, while the surrounding situation explains why the prediction is reasonable. To test your understanding, distinguish the helper, action, optional pronoun, and time information in one complete sentence.

Notice the difference

Common mistakes

From understanding to using

Make your own example.

Try these without answer choices. Say your answer aloud or write it below, then compare your reasoning with the model.