Faire (to Do/Make) in French

In Brief

Faire is the common French verb for both “to do” and “to make.” Its present-tense forms are irregular: je fais, tu fais, il/elle fait, nous faisons, vous faites, ils/elles font. Learn these forms as a set, because faire also appears in many everyday expressions such as faire du sport, faire la cuisine, and il fait beau.

Overview

Faire is one of the most useful verbs in French. It can describe doing a task, making something, taking part in an activity, or causing a result. It also appears in fixed expressions about weather, household chores, study, travel, and leisure. English often chooses a more specific verb—“play,” “cook,” “go,” or “take,” for example—where French uses faire.

This verb is introduced at A1 because it lets you talk about everyday life immediately: Je fais mes devoirs (“I do my homework”), Nous faisons la cuisine (“We’re cooking”), and Qu’est-ce que tu fais ? (“What are you doing?”). Its present tense is highly irregular, so the endings used by regular -ER verbs do not apply.

The infinitive (the basic, unconjugated form of a verb) is faire. In a sentence, it changes form to match its subject—the person or thing performing the action. At first, focus on the six present-tense forms and a small group of high-frequency expressions. The later sections explain broader uses that you can learn gradually.

How It Works

Present-tense conjugation

Subject	Form	Approximate meaning
je	fais	I do / I make; I am doing / making
tu	fais	you do / make (informal singular)
il / elle / on	fait	he / she / one does or makes; we do or make
nous	faisons	we do / make
vous	faites	you do / make (plural or formal)
ils / elles	font	they do / make

Three details make the pattern easier to remember:

1. Je fais and tu fais are written identically.
2. Il/elle/on fait ends in -t, while ils/elles font has a different stem and spelling.
3. Vous faites, not vous faisez, is the form to memorize. Nous faisons is pronounced with a z sound between the vowels, roughly “feu-zon.”

French present tense covers several English forms. Depending on context, je fais can mean “I do,” “I make,” “I am doing,” or “I am making.” French does not normally need a separate present progressive form equivalent to English “am doing.”

Basic sentence patterns

Faire + a thing or task

A noun (a word for a person, place, thing, or idea) can follow faire directly:

• Je fais mes devoirs. — I do my homework.
• Elle fait un gâteau. — She is making a cake.
• Nous faisons une liste. — We are making a list.

Context tells you whether English prefers “do” or “make.” There is no reliable rule that translates every English use of either verb with faire: French may use another verb instead.

Faire + an activity

Many activities use faire de + noun. The preposition de combines with a definite article in these forms:

Before the activity	Form	Example
masculine singular	du (de + le)	faire du sport
feminine singular	de la	faire de la natation
singular before a vowel or silent h	de l’	faire de l’escalade
plural	des (de + les)	faire des exercices

The article is part of the normal expression. Do not reduce faire du sport to faire sport. With a particular, identified item rather than an activity in general, the structure can change: Je fais les exercices du livre means “I’m doing the exercises in the book.”

Faire + weather

French commonly uses impersonal il fait for weather conditions. Here, il does not refer to a male person; it is a grammatical subject like “it” in “it is cold.”

• Il fait beau. — The weather is nice.
• Il fait chaud. — It is hot.
• Il fait froid. — It is cold.
• Quel temps fait-il ? — What is the weather like?

Not every weather statement uses faire. Say Il pleut for “It’s raining” and Il neige for “It’s snowing.”

Asking what someone does

The most useful question is Qu’est-ce que tu fais ? (“What are you doing?” or “What do you do?”). The answer depends on context. For someone’s occupation, French also commonly asks Qu’est-ce que tu fais dans la vie ? (“What do you do for a living?”).

With formal or plural “you,” use Qu’est-ce que vous faites ? In more formal writing, inversion is possible: Que faites-vous ? Everyday conversation strongly favors Qu’est-ce que… ?.

Negative sentences

Place ne before the conjugated verb and pas after it:

• Je ne fais pas de sport aujourd’hui. — I’m not doing any sport today.
• Nous ne faisons pas la cuisine ce soir. — We aren’t cooking tonight.

Before a noun, un, une, du, de la, and des usually become de/d’ after ne… pas: Je fais du vélo becomes Je ne fais pas de vélo. A definite article can remain when a specific item is meant: Je ne fais pas les exercices de la page dix.

Examples in Context

French	English	Note
Qu’est-ce que tu fais ?	What are you doing?	Informal singular question
Je fais du sport trois fois par semaine.	I do sports three times a week.	General activity with du
Il fait beau aujourd’hui.	The weather is nice today.	Impersonal weather expression
Nous faisons la cuisine ensemble.	We’re cooking together.	Literally “we do the cooking”
Vous faites quoi ce week-end ?	What are you doing this weekend?	Common conversational word order
Elle fait un gâteau pour son anniversaire.	She is making a cake for her birthday.	Making something
Les enfants font leurs devoirs après l’école.	The children do their homework after school.	Plural form font
On fait une pause ?	Shall we take a break?	On commonly means “we” in speech
Tu fais de la natation le mardi.	You go swimming on Tuesdays.	English uses a different verb
Mon frère fait du vélo pour aller au travail.	My brother cycles to work.	Activity with du
Il ne fait pas froid ce matin.	It isn’t cold this morning.	Negative weather phrase
Je ne fais pas de bruit.	I’m not making any noise.	du bruit becomes de bruit after negation
Que faites-vous dans la vie ?	What do you do for a living?	Formal question
Cette machine fait beaucoup de bruit.	This machine makes a lot of noise.	A thing can be the subject
Ça fait vingt euros.	That comes to twenty euros.	Common use for a total

Common Mistakes

Using regular -ER endings

• Wrong: Nous fairons la cuisine.
• Right: Nous faisons la cuisine.
• Why: Faire is not a regular -ER verb. In the present tense, its “we” form is faisons. (Nous ferons is a future form, not a present one.)

Inventing vous faisez

• Wrong: Vous faisez du sport ?
• Right: Vous faites du sport ?
• Why: The present form with vous is the exceptional form faites.

Confusing fait and font

• Wrong: Ils fait leurs devoirs.
• Right: Ils font leurs devoirs.
• Why: Use fait with one third-person subject and font with a plural third-person subject.

Omitting the article in an activity expression

• Wrong: Je fais sport le samedi.
• Right: Je fais du sport le samedi.
• Why: General activities commonly follow the pattern faire du/de la/de l’/des.

Translating every “make” with faire

• Wrong: Je fais une décision.
• Right: Je prends une décision.
• Why: French combinations do not always match English ones. French “takes” a decision (prendre une décision), even though English “makes” one. Learn frequent expressions as complete phrases.

Using faire for rain and snow

• Wrong: Il fait pluie aujourd’hui.
• Right: Il pleut aujourd’hui.
• Why: Il fait works with expressions such as beau, chaud, and froid, but rain and snow use the verbs pleuvoir and neiger.

Usage Notes

On fait is common in conversation

Although nous faisons is essential and fully normal, spoken French often uses on fait to mean “we do” or “we’re doing”: On fait quoi ce soir ? (“What are we doing tonight?”). On takes a third-person singular verb, so it is always on fait, never on faisons.

English often chooses a more specific verb

A natural translation does not need to preserve “do” or “make.” Depending on the expression, faire may become “take,” “go,” “play,” “cook,” or another English verb:

• faire une promenade — to take a walk
• faire du ski — to ski / go skiing
• faire la cuisine — to cook
• faire attention — to pay attention / be careful
• faire la queue — to stand in line

This works in the other direction too: English “do” and “make” are not automatic signals to use faire. Treat each recurring combination as vocabulary plus grammar.

Spoken questions can be shorter

Vous faites quoi ? is very common in casual speech. Qu’est-ce que vous faites ? is neutral and useful in almost any situation. Que faites-vous ? sounds more formal or written. All three can be correct; the choice is mainly about register (how formal or informal the language sounds).

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

You do not need to master the following uses at A1, but they explain many forms you will meet later.

Past forms

The compound past uses avoir + fait. Fait is the past participle (a verb form used with an auxiliary verb to build a past tense):

• J’ai fait mes devoirs. — I did my homework.
• Nous avons fait un gâteau. — We made a cake.

The imperfect faisais, faisais, faisait, faisions, faisiez, faisaient often describes an ongoing or habitual past action: Quand j’étais enfant, je faisais du vélo tous les jours (“When I was a child, I rode my bike every day”). The future and conditional use the stem fer-: je ferai (“I will do”) and je ferais (“I would do”).

Duration and elapsed time

Ça fait + length of time + que… tells how long something has been happening:

• Ça fait deux ans que j’apprends le français. — I’ve been learning French for two years.

This structure is very common, but it requires a different way of organizing the sentence than English.

Describing an effect or impression

Faire can mean “to have an effect,” “to look,” or “to seem” in set patterns:

• Ça me fait plaisir. — That makes me happy / I’m pleased.
• Cette veste fait très chic. — This jacket looks very stylish.
• Il fait jeune pour son âge. — He looks young for his age.

These uses are idiomatic: their meaning comes from the complete expression, not from translating faire alone.

The causative: faire + infinitive

In the causative construction, a subject arranges for or causes another action to happen. The second verb stays in the infinitive:

• Je fais réparer mon vélo. — I’m having my bike repaired.
• Elle fait rire les enfants. — She makes the children laugh.

Pronoun placement and the person performing the action can make this construction more complex. Study it separately once the basic uses of faire are secure.

Practice Tips

1. Learn the present forms in three sound-and-spelling groups: fais/fais/fait, faisons/faites, font. Then cover the table and rebuild it from memory.
2. Collect complete expressions, not isolated translations. Make short cards for faire du sport, faire attention, faire les courses, faire une pause, and faire ses devoirs, including the article or possessive word.
3. Describe one real day. Say what you do, what people around you do, and what the weather is like: Je fais…, Nous faisons…, Ils font…, Il fait…. This practices both conjugation and meaning in context.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Regular -ER Verbs — provides the basic idea of matching a present-tense verb to its subject and highlights why faire must be learned separately.
• Later extension: Causative Construction — develops the advanced faire + infinitive pattern used to have or make someone do something.