Focus on French Verbs: connaître

The French verb connaître most often means "to know" or "to be familiar with." You can use it to talk about knowing a person, knowing a place, or being familiar with a subject, work, situation, or experience.

English uses "know" in many situations where French chooses between connaître and savoir. Learning what can follow connaître directly is one of the keys to making that distinction.

Conjugation

Connaître is an irregular -re verb. Its present-tense forms include je connais, nous connaissons, and ils connaissent, and its past participle is connu.

See connaître for all tenses and forms.

Common patterns and prepositions

Connaître normally takes a direct object with no preposition. A few fixed expressions add de.

Pronominal form: s'y connaître en

S'y connaître en is a pronominal construction built on connaître. It means to know a lot about a subject, to be knowledgeable about a field, or to know one's way around a topic.

This is not the same as connaître + noun. Je connais Paris means you are familiar with Paris. Je m'y connais en géographie means you know a lot about the subject of geography.

Connaître + noun: knowing someone or something

Connaître normally takes a direct object:

The basic pattern is:

connaître + noun

No preposition is required between connaître and the person or thing known. The idea is generally one of familiarity or experience — you have encountered, experienced, studied, or become acquainted with the person or thing.

Knowing a person

Use connaître when you know or are acquainted with someone:

This does not necessarily mean that you know everything about the person. It describes familiarity or acquaintance.

Knowing a place

Use connaître when you know or are familiar with a place:

In English, "Do you know Paris?" can sound as though someone is asking whether you know that Paris exists. French Vous connaissez Paris ? normally asks whether you are familiar with the city. This use often suggests some degree of personal experience with the place.

Knowing a subject or thing

Connaître can also describe familiarity with a subject, work, system, rule, or other body of knowledge:

Here again, connaître describes familiarity rather than simply knowing a particular fact. Knowing a book does not necessarily mean that you know every detail of its contents.

Connaître quelque chose de...

A useful construction is connaître quelque chose de + noun, meaning to know something about a subject:

French may express the idea of "knowing about" in other ways depending on context, so it is important not to treat every English "know about" as a fixed connaître de pattern. The central construction remains connaître + direct object.

Connaître bien and bien connaître

Bien is very common with connaître because familiarity can have different degrees:

The expression bien connaître often implies more than simply recognizing the person, place, or subject. It suggests substantial familiarity.

Connaître de nom

Connaître quelqu'un de nom means to know someone by name without necessarily knowing the person personally:

Compare Je connais Paul (I know Paul) with Je connais Paul de nom (I know Paul by name). The second sentence specifically limits the speaker's familiarity.

Connaître de vue

Connaître quelqu'un de vue means to know someone by sight:

The speaker recognizes the person but does not necessarily know them personally. Together, these expressions provide useful distinctions:

• connaître quelqu'un — know someone
• connaître quelqu'un de nom — know someone by name
• connaître quelqu'un de vue — know someone by sight

Faire connaissance

The expression faire connaissance means to meet or to get acquainted with someone:

Afterward, you can use connaître to describe the resulting familiarity. Faire la connaissance de quelqu'un is different from rencontrer, which can simply describe meeting or encountering someone.

Common expressions with connaître

Several useful expressions are built around connaître and the related noun connaissance:

• connaître quelqu'un — to know someone
• bien connaître — to know well
• connaître de nom — to know by name
• connaître de vue — to know by sight
• s'y connaître en — to know a lot about, be knowledgeable about
• faire connaissance — to meet, get acquainted
• faire la connaissance de quelqu'un — to meet, become acquainted with someone

These expressions all relate to different kinds or degrees of familiarity.

Common mistakes with connaître

Don't add a preposition before the person you know

The person is the direct object of connaître.

Don't use connaître for knowing how to do something

English uses "know" in "I know how to swim," but French uses savoir + infinitive:

Not connaître nager. Connaître normally takes a noun or pronoun as its object, not an infinitive expressing an ability.

Don't use connaître before a que-clause for knowing a fact

To say that you know a fact, French normally uses savoir que:

The ordinary pattern is not connaître que.

Remember the circumflex

The infinitive is connaître. The circumflex remains in some forms, such as il connaîtra, but not in others such as je connais, nous connaissons, and ils connaissent.

Connaître vs savoir

The distinction between connaître and savoir is one of the most important uses of connaître to learn.

Use connaître for familiarity with a person, place, subject, or thing:

Use savoir for facts and information:

Use savoir + infinitive for knowing how to do something:

A useful contrast is connaître + noun versus savoir + clause or infinitive. This is not an absolute description of every possible use, but it covers the distinction learners encounter most often.

Connaître vs comprendre

Connaître describes knowing or being familiar with something. Comprendre describes understanding it:

You can connaître something without fully comprendre it.

Connaître vs rencontrer

When talking about people, English "know" and "meet" can lead to confusion.

Connaître describes an existing familiarity:

Rencontrer describes meeting or encountering someone:

To talk specifically about becoming acquainted with someone, French can use faire connaissance or faire la connaissance de quelqu'un.

Related verbs

The most important distinction is between connaître and savoir. English uses "know" for both, but French usually makes the type of knowledge explicit through the verb and construction.

From learning to practice

Introductions often lead to Tu connais… ? — a person, a neighborhood, a song. The verb takes its object directly: Je connais ce quartier, not Je connais à ce quartier. When someone asks whether you can do something, reach for savoir (Je sais nager), not connaître. At a dinner table, Je ne m'y connais pas en vin is a handy way to deflect expertise without claiming ignorance of the whole topic.