devenir

One of the most essential verbs in French, used for any change of state — becoming a doctor, becoming difficult, becoming someone's friend. It's irregular, conjugated like venir and tenir, and always takes être as its auxiliary in compound tenses.

• Elle est devenue médecin après dix ans d'études. — She became a doctor after ten years of study.
• La situation est devenue compliquée. — The situation has become complicated.
• Qu'est-ce que tu veux devenir plus tard ? — What do you want to become later in life?

Learners often try to use devenir to mean 'to happen to' in general contexts — French does use it that way in the fixed question qu'est-ce qu'il est devenu (what became of him), but devenir can't otherwise replace passer or arriver for ordinary events.

• book Devenir — The French title of Michelle Obama's 2018 memoir Becoming, published in France under the direct translation Devenir.
• quote "On ne naît pas femme, on le devient" — Simone de Beauvoir's famous line from Le Deuxième Sexe (1949) — 'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' — a founding statement of modern feminist theory.