If you’re here to learn about a French word, you’re in luck! In this edition of our Word of the Week blog, we’re going to look at the verb aimer.
Before we get into the details, listen to our audio clip to hear how to pronounce its infinitive form:
As is often the case, our first consideration might be whether is this another false friend… When you see the word aimer, you might be looking for similar English words, like ‘aim’. So on that basis, aimer means ‘to aim’? Nope! Not at all.
The English translation of aimer is ‘to like’ or ‘to love’. You might recognise it from the well-known French term je t’aime, meaning ‘I love you’. But aimer is useful in lots of different situations – not all of them romantic!
In terms of the grammar, it should be fairly straightforward if you know the regular conjugation pattern for -er verbs. If not, head over to our Easy Learning French Grammar section on verbs, or specific pages about -er verbs in the present indicative, present subjunctive and imperfect tense.
Now that we’ve got the key information out of the way, let’s look at some examples of this verb in action:
J’aime jouer au tennis mais vous n’aimez que jouer au foot. I like playing tennis but you only like playing football.
Nous n’aimons pas la pizza. We don’t like pizza.
Est-ce que tu aimes le café ? Do you like coffee ?
aimer mieux to prefer (the literal translation is ‘to better like’)
aimer mieuxquelque chose que quelque chose to prefer something to something else
Moi j’aime mieux aller au cinéma qu’aller au théâtre. I prefer going to the cinema than going to the theatre.
Ton chat n’aimait jamais les caresses. Your cat never used to like being stroked.
Son ami aimerait bien nous rejoindre ce soir. Her friend would like to join us this evening.
Quest-ce que tu aimerais manger ? What would you like to eat?
Nous n’avons pas aimé ses romans. We didn’t like/enjoy his novels.
Note that there’s quite a fine line between ‘like’ and ‘love’ with this verb when you’re talking about people:
Je t’aime bien. I like you a lot; I really like you. (friendly)
J’aime bien Laurent, il est très sympa. I really like Laurent, he’s very kind. (friendly)
C’est une amie que j’aime beaucoup. She’s a friend who I like a lot. (friendly)
Je t’aime. I love you. (romantic)
Je l’aime. I love her. (romantic)
Aimer also has a reflexive version of itself – s’aimer. As we’re looking at examples of s’aimer in use, it’s a good time to remind yourself that all reflexives take être as their auxiliary verb.
Here are some examples:
s’aimer to be in love; to love each other; to like each other; to like/love yourself
Mes parents s’aimaient depuis cinquante ans ! My parents were in love (with each other) for fifty years!
Il me semble qu’ils ne se sont jamais aimés. It seems to me that they’ve never loved each other.
Thank you for reading our blog. We hope that you liked it! Hopefully enough to keep coming back – see you next week.
Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
