Negative forms in French

• Sentences can be made negative in French using ne … pas, in different tenses.

• There are other words to make sentences negative too, such as ne … jamais (never), ne … rien (nothing) and ne … personne (nobody/no one).

• In negative questions either add a question mark to a statement and change your voice to a questioning tone, or insert est-ce que into the question.

• Higher Tier only – Words in French such as ne … que (only), ne … ni … ni (neither … nor), ne … plus (no longer) and ne … pas encore (not yet) also make sentences negative.

• Higher Tier only – Negative structures usually go around any pronoun that comes before the verb, such as me (me), te (you) and y (there), as well as the conjugated verb.

Watch the video to learn how to use negative forms in French.

For Foundation Tier the shown forms ne … pas, ne … jamais, ne … rien and ne … personne should be learned.

For Higher Tier, the shown forms ne … plus, ne … ni … ni and ne … que should also be learned.

Forming negatives is an important part of speaking and writing French.

To say ‘not’, use ne and pas on either side of the conjugated verb. Use n’ before a vowel or h.

• In the present tense they are placed around the main verb in the sentence:

For example:

Je ne veux pas aller à la plage. – I don’t want to go to the beach.

Il ne joue pas au foot. – He isn’t playing football./He doesn’t play football.

• In the perfect tense, the negative words wrap around the auxiliary verbs avoir or être:

For example:

Ils n’ont pas fait leurs devoirs. – They didn’t do their homework.

Nous ne sommes pas allés aux États-Unis. – We didn’t go to the USA.

• In the near future tense, the negative words are placed around aller:

For example:

Nous n’allons pas manger au restaurant cet après-midi. – We aren’t going to eat at the restaurant this afternoon.

These other negative structures are also formed by wrapping the negative words around the conjugated verb:

Remember

Be careful not to confuse une personne (a person/someone) with ne … personne (no one).

For example:

Il y a une personne à la banque. – There is a person/someone at the bank.

Il n’y a personne à la banque. – There isn’t anyone at the bank.

With negative questions, either add a question mark and make the pitch of your voice go up to make a questioning tone when speaking, or insert est-ce que into the question.

For example:

Tu ne vas pas au concert ce soir ? – Aren’t you going to the concert this evening?

Pourquoi est-ce que vous n’aimez pas faire la natation ? – Why don’t you like going swimming?

Where a verb is followed by an infinitive, the negative words wrap around the first verb, the one that is conjugated, and the infinitive follows it.

For example:

Je ne voudrais pas manger les frites. – I wouldn’t like to eat the chips.

Nous n’aimons pas aller en ville. – We don’t like going to town.

Elle ne va rien dire. – She is going to say nothing.

Practise what you've learned about negative forms in French with this quiz.

These other negative forms are also constructed by wrapping the negative words around the conjugated verb:

Personne … ne and rien … ne can also be used as the subject of the sentence.

For example:

Personne n’est allé au concert hier. – No one went to the concert yesterday.

Rien n’est possible en ce moment. – Nothing is possible at the moment.

Negative structures usually go around not only the conjugated verb but also any pronoun such as me (me), te (you), y (there) and en (it/of it), that comes before the verb.

For example:

Je n’y habite plus. – I don’t live there anymore.

Il ne m’a pas vu. – He didn’t see me.

Nous n’en avons pas besoin. – We don’t need it.

Practise what you've learned about negative forms in French with this Higher Tier quiz.

Now you’ve learned about negative forms in French, why not explore impersonal verbs and expressions?