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How to talk about what you don’t like to do.

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Practice Conversation

You have learned the verb faire in previous lessons, and you know it means to do or to make. Faire is often used to talk about activities.

person hiking atop a hill

Review the activities that use faire in the table below. Listen to the audio and repeat each expression out loud.

faire de la randonnée to go hiking
faire du bateau to go boating
faire du jogging to go jogging
faire du camping to go camping
faire de la plongée sous-marine to go scuba diving
faire du cheval to go horseback riding

Many other expressions use faire to indicate an activity, so let’s review how to conjugate this irregular verb.

Look at the conjugation in the table below. Try saying each form out loud. Then listen to the audio to check your pronunciation.

faire
je fais nous faisons
tu fais vous faites
il/elle/on fait ils/elles font

The way to ask what someone is doing is Qu’est-ce que tu fais? Can you describe how to formulate this question?

You use the question word que with the question marker est-ce que and place them at the beginning of the sentence you want to make into a question.

Qu’est-ce que tu fais?

In previous lessons, you have seen inversion questions, which invert, or switch, the order of the verb and the subject. What would the question above look like in inverted form?

You place the question word que before the inverted subject and verb.

Que fais-tu?

Here are some example sentences on how to say you do certain activities:

Bonjour Marc! Qu’est-ce que tu fais aujourd’hui?
Je fais de la randonnée avec Mourad.
Où faites-vous de la randonnée?
Nous faisons de la randonnée dans la forêt.
Et les autres amis? Que font-ils?
Je ne sais pas. Mais, ils ne font pas de* randonnée avec nous.

Note: when you use the negative, the du, un, une becomes de. You will learn more on the next slide.

Try this practice activity to make sure you remember how to use the conjugation of faire. Match each subject with the appropriate verb form.

To match items, click or tap an item in the left column and then click or tap its match in the right column. If you change your mind, make a different choice. Once you have matched all items, click "Check Answers" to see how you did. Click "Reset" to try again.
Great job!

Question

What three things can faire mean or be used with?

to do, to make or it can be used with expressions

You’ve learned how to negate sentences and reviewed the conjugation of faire. Good job!