apprendre

French

Etymology

Inherited from Latin apprendere, contracted form of apprehendere, present active infinitive of apprehendō. Doublet of appréhender.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.pʁɑ̃dʁ/

• audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑ̃dʁ

Verb

apprendre

1. to learn

   Grâce à vous, j'en apprends tous les jours. -Thanks to you, I learn every day.

2. to teach

   Aujourd'hui je vais vous apprendre quelques mots hawaïens. -Today I am going to teach you some Hawaiian words.

   • 1837, Louis Viardot, L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche^{fr.Wikisource}, translation of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Volume I, Chapter II:

     À ces sottises, il en ajoutait cent autres, toutes à la manière de celles que ses livres lui avaient apprises, imitant de son mieux leur langage.

     To these foolish sayings, he added a hundred others, all in the manner of those that his books had taught him, imitating to the best of his ability their language.

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated on the model of prendre. That means it is quite irregular, with the following patterns:

• In the infinitive, in the singular forms of the present indicative, and in the future and the conditional, it is conjugated like rendre, perdre, etc. (sometimes called the regular -re verbs).
• In the plural forms of the present indicative and imperative, in the imperfect indicative, in the present subjunctive, and in the present participle, it is conjugated like appeler or jeter, using the stem apprenn- before mute ‘e’ and the stem appren- elsewhere.
• In the past participle, and in the past historic and the imperfect subjunctive, its conjugation resembles that of mettre.

  Conjugation of apprendre (see also Appendix:French verbs)

		simple			compound
infinitive		apprendre			avoir appris
gerund		en apprenant			en ayant appris
present participle		apprenant /a.pʁə.nɑ̃/
past participle		appris /a.pʁi/
person		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il	nous	vous	ils
simple tenses	present	apprends /a.pʁɑ̃/	apprends /a.pʁɑ̃/	apprend /a.pʁɑ̃/	apprenons /a.pʁə.nɔ̃/	apprenez /a.pʁə.ne/	apprennent /a.pʁɛn/
	imperfect	apprenais /a.pʁə.nɛ/	apprenais /a.pʁə.nɛ/	apprenait /a.pʁə.nɛ/	apprenions /a.pʁə.njɔ̃/	appreniez /a.pʁə.nje/	apprenaient /a.pʁə.nɛ/
	past historic1	appris /a.pʁi/	appris /a.pʁi/	apprit /a.pʁi/	apprîmes /a.pʁim/	apprîtes /a.pʁit/	apprirent /a.pʁiʁ/
	future	apprendrai /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁe/	apprendras /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁa/	apprendra /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁa/	apprendrons /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁɔ̃/	apprendrez /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁe/	apprendront /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁɔ̃/
	conditional	apprendrais /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁɛ/	apprendrais /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁɛ/	apprendrait /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁɛ/	apprendrions /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁi.jɔ̃/	apprendriez /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁi.je/	apprendraient /a.pʁɑ̃.dʁɛ/
compound tenses	present perfect	Use the present tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	pluperfect	Use the imperfect tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	past anterior1	Use the past historic tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	future perfect	Use the future tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	conditional perfect	Use the conditional tense of avoir followed by the past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il	que nous	que vous	qu’ils
simple tenses	present	apprenne /a.pʁɛn/	apprennes /a.pʁɛn/	apprenne /a.pʁɛn/	apprenions /a.pʁə.njɔ̃/	appreniez /a.pʁə.nje/	apprennent /a.pʁɛn/
	imperfect1	apprisse /a.pʁis/	apprisses /a.pʁis/	apprît /a.pʁi/	apprissions /a.pʁi.sjɔ̃/	apprissiez /a.pʁi.sje/	apprissent /a.pʁis/
compound tenses	past	Use the present subjunctive tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	pluperfect1	Use the imperfect subjunctive tense of avoir followed by the past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
		—	apprends /a.pʁɑ̃/	—	apprenons /a.pʁə.nɔ̃/	apprenez /a.pʁə.ne/	—
1literary tenses

Derived terms

• apprendre par cœur ("to memorize")

Synonyms

• (to teach): enseigner, instruire

Further reading

• “apprendre” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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Middle French

Alternative forms

• aprendre

Verb

apprendre

1. to learn

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Norman

Etymology

From Old French aprandre, aprendre, from Latin apprehendō (“grasp, understand, comprehend”).

Verb

apprendre

1. (Guernsey, Jersey) to learn
2. (Jersey) to teach

Synonyms

• (to teach): ensîngni

Derived terms

• apprendre par tchoeu (“to learn by heart”)

Related terms

• êtudier (“to study”)