Saying “I need to” In French For Beginners

Being able to say “I need…” is an important part of being able to communicate in any language including French.

Saying “I need to” In English

In English there is only one word… which is of course “Need”

This one word can be used to cover kinds of need. The context of the rest of the sentence will explain how much ‘need’ there actually is.

I will explain this as I go through the French equivalents so you can get an idea of what is best for you to use while speaking French and make sure you can communicate your needs correctly.  

Saying “I need to” In French

There are a number of different ways to say “I need to” in french, so lets go through them:

Using – Avoir Besoin De…

One of the first ways you will be told to say “to need” is with “Besoin de…” 

This is fairly simple. You need to use Avoir as the auxiliary to make it work.

You simply conjugate avoir for whoever you are talking about “I – J’ai” or “You – Tu as” and so on.

Then you add “besoin de” after.   

So “I need two cats”

Becomes

“j’ai besoin de deux chat”

The only rules is that if the word after begins with a vowel or a H, the de become d’

So “I need one cat” would be “j’ai besoin d’un chat”.

People are often told this is all you need to know when saying “need” in French, which isn’t true because as I’ve alluded to, there is more than one way to do it.

The French use this when there is something in life you cannot avoid. Its beyond your control and it is more of as a ‘necessity’ type of need. It is almost like saying “It is necessary for me to…”

Two phrases you will often hear are: 

• Les besoins naturels – natural needs (needing the toilet)
• les besoins élémentaires  – basic needs (food and shelter)

So although you can use this to say “I need” and it will be understood. It may not always be the most appropriate way to say this.

Using – Devoir 

When people say that you should see learning a language as translating concepts, not direct translations, this is a great example of this.

Those of you who have studying, you may recognise the verb Devoir, it means “To have to”.

So “Je dois manger” would literally translate as “I have to eat” 

Which hopefully we can all agree is the same as saying “I need to eat”

You will often hear people say that using this verb is like saying “I need” but the level of need is little stronger.

The two examples you will always hear is, “I need to go to work” or “I need to do my homework”, which is something you very normally hear in English.

However, In French they would use Devior for these two activities. These two tasks are something you have to do! They are little more than a need and actually more like a duty or obligation.

You can say this to mean “need”, but if you hear this, try and understand it as “have to” and you should get a better understanding of what level of “need” is being talked about.

Using – Falloir

Lastly we have the verb falloir, which works a little different to the verbs we already know about.

It is an impersonal verb. Without going into it too deeply, it basically means we only use this verb in the ‘il’ form for every tense.

So no matter who or what you are talking about it, it’s always the “il” form.

In the present tense it is – “Il faut” – which can roughly translate as “it is necessary” when you make it reflective, with the ‘me’ reflective pronoun, it basically becomes “I need – il me faut”

You will actually hear all the time in France to mean “need” in daily casual talk. It is again a great example of a concept being translated rather than individual words. 

Two phrases you might hear are:

• Il faut de l’argent pour vivre – You need money to make a living (often also translates as “it takes money to live”)
• Il faut faire attention avant de traverser la route. –  You need to pay attention before crossing the road (also often translated as “you have to/ must be careful before crossing the road)

As you can see both of these can be interpreted as using “need” as well a few other similar variations.

You will also hear this being used all the time in the farmers markets up and down the country.

Any of the market sellers might ask you –

• Qu’est-ce qu’il vous faut?  – What do you need?

Or

•  Qu’est-ce qu’il vous faudra pour votre recette? – What will you need for your recipe?

You can then reply by saying:

• Il me faut des tomates, s’il vous plait. – I need tomatoes, please.

And when the farmer is done handing you everything, he’s likely to say:

• C’est tout ce qu’il vous faudra? – Is that all you need?

This for me this is the way I use “need” most of the time. This is how we say in English. “I need a cup of tea” and “I need to get some carrots” they are still “needs” but not quite full necessities and certainty not obligations.

Conclusion

Hopefully now you have a better understanding of how can say “you need” something in French and can use the correct way that suits your level of needs.

A native French person should understand any version you say, but if you are not confident or unsure, just use “avoir besoin de” and you can’t go wrong. 

(Read the next lesson – Simple Future Tense – Futur Simple – “I Will”)