Choose two very short, very simple French sentence forms, write them down, and look at them while you do sentence practice. These two forms, Je suis and J’ai, begin a sentence with verbs être and avoir. And, they will let you begin using these verbs as real words that express actual information about you. Je means I, suis means am, so je suis means I am. J’ (this short j is a contraction of Je), ‘ (this is an apostrophe), ai means have, so J’ ai means I have. You will use these sentence frames to make very short, personal sentences in French. These very sentences will also become easier for you to ask questions later. And they’ll also help you to understand how French verbs can exist in real life sentences.
First, do not use être and avoir just as forms to fill in charts. Yes, a chart might look like je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, etc., but a student who is learning these forms will find meaning more easily if sentences like je suis étudiant, je suis à Paris, je suis fatigué, j’ ai un livre, j’ ai une question, or j’ ai le temps, are written in their language book or notebook. The sentences do not need to be long. They just need to be long enough to repeat out loud, and to use for sentence practice.
Before you mix the sentences that use être with those that use avoir, let’s first look at sentences that use être. Write down three different sentences about yourself, perhaps with forms of être that you have already memorized: je suis débutant. Je suis à la maison. Je suis prêt. Practice saying them out loud and note how je suis can become a single sound chunk. Now, write down another three sentences that use the verb avoir: J’ ai un stylo. J’ ai une idée. J’ ai vingt minutes. Keep the article with the noun, because un, une, le, and la are part of the sentence work.
One other way to practice is to ask yourself what the sentence means in English, without copying English word order too tightly. English will say I am hungry, but French will say J’ ai faim. French will say J’ ai vingt ans, but English will say I am twenty years old. These differences in sentence structure show how you cannot always choose être or avoir just by using word for word translation, because these phrases become common phrases in sentence use, too.
Pronunciation is another thing to notice while practicing. When you read Je suis, it should sound like one, short chunk of sound, not three heavy, long sounds like je… sui… sw. While reading aloud, always try one sentence once for meaning, and once again for sound. When the final letter of the last word is a silent letter, such as the t in prêt, do not pronounce that last letter. When the sentence begins with articles like une, un, le, or la, keep these word close to the noun. A short sentence will practice the pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary all together!
After you have a few statements under your belt, you can begin to change these statements into questions or answers in mini dialogues. You might say, Vous êtes prêt? And I will respond, Oui, je suis prêt. I might ask you, Vous avez une question? And you will answer, Oui, j’ ai une question. These sentence exchanges will help you to feel how these sentence forms become less abstract memorization, and more real parts of a conversation. It also helps you notice the difference between je, vous, and the verb form that follows.
One final note: do not count your success by how many forms you can say out loud in one time! An early form of success with these sentences will look like your ability to begin to know which sentence frame you should begin with (Je suis or J’ ai) for a short phrase before you say it. As you learn more and more useful phrases, try to write them in a phrase notebook. Especially note down phrases you might say in class, or while traveling, at a café, or at the store. Remember that être and avoir are not two verbs to memorize, they’re two doors to hundreds of useful short, simple sentences.