Focus on French Verbs: arriver

The French verb arriver most often means "to arrive." You can use it to talk about reaching a place, arriving at a particular time, or someone or something showing up.

But arriver also has several important uses that do not translate directly as "to arrive." Arriver à + infinitive can mean to manage or succeed in doing something, while expressions such as Qu'est-ce qui t'arrive ? use arriver to talk about something happening to someone.

Conjugation

Arriver is a regular -er verb and follows the standard conjugation pattern for French verbs ending in -er.

In compound tenses such as the passé composé, arriver is conjugated with être:

The past participle agrees with the subject when arriver is conjugated with être: arrivé, arrivée, arrivés, or arrivées.

See arriver for all tenses and forms.

Common patterns and prepositions

Arriving somewhere

Use arriver to talk about reaching a destination:

The preposition depends on the destination. You will commonly encounter patterns such as:

arriver à + city or place

arriver en + country or region

arriver chez + person

The destination determines which preposition appears:

Arriving at a particular time

Arriver is also commonly used with a time:

Two particularly useful expressions are arriver à l'heure (to arrive on time) and arriver en retard (to arrive late):

Arriver de: saying where someone has arrived from

You can use arriver de to indicate the place someone has arrived from:

Here, de changes as it normally does before certain place names:

Be careful not to confuse this with venir de + infinitive, which is used to say that someone has just done something.

Arriver à + infinitive

One of the most useful meanings of arriver is found in this construction:

arriver à + infinitive

Here, arriver can mean "to manage to," "to succeed in," or "to be able to accomplish" something:

This meaning is different from physically arriving somewhere. The idea is that someone succeeds in reaching a result.

The negative form is especially common:

ne pas arriver à + infinitive

The difficulty often shows up in the negative:

Depending on context, English will often simply use "can't" rather than "can't manage to."

Arriver à + noun

The same preposition à can also introduce a destination or endpoint:

That means arriver à does not always mean "manage to." Look at what follows it:

Arriver: to happen

Arriver can also mean "to happen":

This use is common when talking about events, accidents, problems, or unexpected situations.

The thing that happens is the grammatical subject:

When you say who experiences the event, that person is introduced with à:

arriver à quelqu'un

The person affected is introduced with à:

Qu'est-ce qui t'arrive ?

A particularly common use of arriver is Qu'est-ce qui t'arrive ?

Literally, the construction asks what is happening to someone. Depending on the situation, natural English translations include "What's happening to you?", "What's wrong?", or "What's the matter with you?"

The same pattern can be used with other people:

The exact English translation depends strongly on context.

Il arrive que...

The impersonal expression il arrive que means "it happens that" or "sometimes":

Because the expression presents something as an occurrence or possibility, il arrive que is followed by the subjunctive.

A related construction is:

il arrive à quelqu'un de + infinitive

The impersonal subject combines with the person and the action:

This is a useful way of saying that someone does something from time to time.

Arriver vs venir

Arriver and venir can both describe movement toward a place, but they focus on different things.

Arriver emphasizes reaching the destination:

Venir means "to come" and describes movement toward a place or person:

A person can therefore venir somewhere and then arriver there:

The distinction is useful because English come and arrive do not always appear in exactly the same contexts as their French counterparts.

Common expressions with arriver

Several common expressions use arriver in its different senses:

These expressions show the two major ideas behind arriver: reaching something and something occurring.

Common mistakes with arriver

Use être in the passé composé

Arriver uses être, not avoir, in compound tenses:

Don't add a direct object for the destination

In its ordinary sense of reaching a place, arriver does not take the destination as a direct object:

The destination is introduced with an appropriate preposition.

Don't confuse arriver à with a single fixed meaning

Compare these sentences:

The first à introduces a destination. The second is part of the arriver à + infinitive construction.

Don't confuse arriver de with venir de + infinitive

Venir de + infinitive expresses the recent past. Arriver de does not have that function.

Related verbs

Several common verbs overlap with different parts of the meaning of arriver:

Parvenir à + infinitive is particularly useful to compare with arriver à + infinitive:

Both can mean that she manages to solve the problem. Parvenir is generally more formal, while arriver à is extremely common in everyday French.

From learning to practice

When making plans, you will often hear Tu arrives à quelle heure ? or On arrive vers huit heures — use the same questions when texting or talking with French-speaking friends. Off the topic of travel, listen for Ça arrive when someone shrugs off a small mishap, or Qu'est-ce qui t'arrive ? when a friend seems upset or unwell.