arriver

One of the most common French verbs: to arrive (physically, at a place or a time), and, just as often, to happen (qu'est-ce qui arrive ?). Takes être as its auxiliary in compound tenses, unlike most action verbs, which take avoir.

• Le train arrive à quelle heure ? — What time does the train arrive?
• Ça arrive à tout le monde de se tromper. — It happens to everyone to make a mistake.
• Elle est arrivée en retard à la réunion. — She arrived late to the meeting.

Learners often default to avoir for the passé composé out of habit — arriver always takes être (elle est arrivée, not elle a arrivée), and the past participle must agree with the subject.

• film L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat — The Lumière brothers' 1896 short film, one of the earliest and most famous films in cinema history, showing a train pulling into a station — often cited (with some legend attached) as having startled its first audiences.