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Conjugation
Objective: Choose the correct verb of knowledge based on the grammatical structure that follows, and conjugate both verbs across all six persons.
| Pronoun | savoir | connaître | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | sais | connais | I know |
| tu | sais | connais | you know |
| il / elle / on | sait | connaît | he, she, one knows |
| nous | savons | connaissons | we know |
| vous | savez | connaissez | you know |
| ils / elles | savent | connaissent | they know |
Connaître applies to places the subject is familiar with, while savoir works with facts and information, never with cities or monuments.
Savoir introduces a clause with que, while connaître takes a direct noun and never a subordinate clause.
Savoir introduces a clause with que. The subject holds a piece of information about a future event.
Connaître takes a direct person as object, expressing familiarity rather than factual knowledge.
Skills use savoir followed by an infinitive. The structure is fixed and never appears with connaître.
Connaître applies to places the subject has visited or is familiar with.
Savoir takes an embedded question introduced by où, since the subject is asking about a piece of information.
6 exercises · about 9 minutes
Skills and abilities use savoir followed by an infinitive, while connaître never appears in this construction.
Connaître applies to people the subject is familiar with, while savoir is reserved for facts, information, and skills.
The plural form connaissent includes the -iss- insertion, matching the pattern of finir.
The skill is expressed with savoir plus an infinitive. Using connaître in this structure is never correct.
Connaître also applies to cultural works, since knowing a film or a book means having seen or read it.