French grammar · A1 · Lesson 18
Expressions with avoir. Tout, toute, tous, toutes
French uses avoir + noun where English uses “to be” + adjective: j’ai peur (I am scared), j’ai froid (I am cold), vous avez raison (you are right), j’ai vingt ans (I am twenty). Tout (“all”) agrees with its noun: tout le voyage, toute la journée, tous les messieurs, toutes les dames.
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How does it work?
English describes how you feel with “to be”: I am cold, I am afraid, you are right. French sees it differently: you have the cold, you have the fear, you have reason on your side. So it uses avoir plus a bare noun, with no article in between:
| French | word for word | English |
|---|---|---|
| j’ai peur | I have fear | I am scared |
| elle a froid / chaud | she has cold / heat | she is cold / hot |
| nous avons faim / soif | we have hunger / thirst | we are hungry / thirsty |
| vous avez raison / tort | you have reason / wrong | you are right / wrong |
| il a besoin de protection | he has need of | he needs protection |
| j’ai envie de rêver | I have desire of | I feel like dreaming |
The most famous one of all is your age: j’ai vingt ans, “I have twenty years”, for “I am twenty”. Same logic.
Tout, “all”, is an adjective, so it agrees with its noun like any other, and it sits in front of the article, as “all” does in English:
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| masculine | tout le voyage | tous les messieurs |
| feminine | toute la journée | toutes les dames |
Your ears get a break here: tout and tous sound the same, “too”, and toute and toutes both sound like “toot”. Then the odd one: tout le monde, “everybody”, is grammatically one single “world”, so its verb is singular: tout le monde a peur, never ont. English does the same with “everybody is”, so trust your instinct.
What does it look like in the story?
These sentences come from lesson 18, “Everybody is scared”, where the narrator is crossing the Atlantic on the liner Provence with Arsène Lupin hidden among the passengers.
| French | English |
|---|---|
| Maintenant, tout le monde a peur. | Now everybody is scared. |
| Miss Nelly a froid, et surtout, elle a peur. | Miss Nelly is cold, and above all she is scared. |
| Toutes les dames ferment leur cabine à clé, et tous les messieurs regardent leurs voisins. | All the ladies lock their cabins, and all the gentlemen watch their neighbours. |
Try it: English says “she is cold”, “everybody is scared”. Which verb does French use instead? And why toutes les dames but tous les messieurs?
« Arsène Lupin, maintenant, c'était... c'était tout le monde. »
Arsène Lupin, now, was… was everybody. Maurice Leblanc, L’Arrestation d’Arsène Lupin (1905).
How is it different from English?
Where English says “I am cold, hungry, scared, right”, French says “I have cold, hunger, fear, reason”. Whenever you are about to say je suis + a feeling, stop and check whether it is one of the avoir ones.
What mistake do English speakers make?
English speakers say ✗ je suis froid. That is not wrong French, but it means “I am a cold person”, unfriendly and distant, which is not what you meant on a windy deck: ✓ j’ai froid. (And je suis chaud, in modern slang, means “I’m up for it”, so stick to ✓ j’ai chaud.) Second trap: ✗ tout le monde ont peur → ✓ tout le monde a peur.
Where can I practise it?
- Lesson 18: Everybody is scared: the story, the rule and interactive exercises, free.
- Review 4: lessons 16 to 20: this point again, in a summary table with the other lessons of the block.
- The A1 glossary: every word of the course, French to English.
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