avoir

Both a standalone verb ("to have") and the auxiliary for most compound tenses. It's also the backbone of a huge set of idioms — avoir faim, avoir soif, avoir raison, avoir X ans — where English uses "to be," not "to have," for the equivalent idea.

• J'ai deux frères. — I have two brothers.
• Elle a vingt ans. — She is twenty years old.
• Nous avons fini le travail. — We have finished the work.

Learners translate "I am 20 years old" as *je suis 20 ans* — French uses avoir here, not être: j'ai 20 ans. Same trap for avoir faim (to be hungry), avoir raison (to be right), and avoir peur (to be afraid).

• politics "J'ai un rêve" — The standard French translation of the opening line of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech.
• quote "J'ai vécu" — Revolutionary-era politician Sieyès's famously dry reply when asked what he did during the Reign of Terror: "I survived."
• song J'ai vu le loup — A traditional French folk song and nursery rhyme still taught to French schoolchildren today.
• film Être et avoir — Shares its title with être's — Nicolas Philibert's 2002 documentary, the highest-grossing French documentary of all time.