Faut

Faut is the third-person singular present form of the French impersonal verb falloir, meaning that it has no direct subject. In ordinary use, falloir is an impersonal verb and appears almost exclusively as il faut, which translates roughly as one must or it is necessary. The construction is a fundamental way to express obligation, necessity, or advisability without specifying who must act.

The primary usage patterns center on il faut plus a complement. Il faut + infinitive indicates general necessity: Il faut étudier pour réussir. Il faut often precedes statements of necessity about actions or situations. Il faut que + subjunctive introduces a specific obligation or requirement: Il faut que tu partes maintenant. The negative form is Il ne faut pas, which expresses prohibition: Il ne faut pas fumer ici. Il faut aussi que + subjunctive appears in contexts where the speaker assigns necessity to someone else’s action.

Conjugation and tenses are limited by its impersonal nature. The standard forms include il faut (present), il fallait (imperfect), il faudra (future), il faudrait (conditional), and il a fallu (passé composé). Less common literary forms include il fallut (passé simple) and il eût fallu (past conditional/subjunctive combinations). The construction with que requires the subjunctive in the subordinate clause.

Relation to other verbs: falloir contrasts with devoir, which also expresses obligation but can take a subject and conveys the obligation as originating from the subject itself rather than an external necessity. The nuance between il faut and il faudrait often captures a stronger or weaker sense of necessity, urgency, or advisability.