apprendre

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French apprendre, from Old French aprendre, aprandre, inherited from Latin apprendere, contracted form of apprehendere, present active infinitive of apprehendō. Doublet of appréhender, which was borrowed.

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

   Synonyms: enseigner, instruire

   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)

infinitive	simple	apprendre
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	apprenant /a.pʁə.nɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		appris /a.pʁi/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(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 historic2	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	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	apprenne /a.pʁɛn/	apprennes /a.pʁɛn/	apprenne /a.pʁɛn/	apprenions /a.pʁə.njɔ̃/	appreniez /a.pʁə.nje/	apprennent /a.pʁɛn/
	imperfect2	apprisse /a.pʁis/	apprisses /a.pʁis/	apprît /a.pʁi/	apprissions /a.pʁi.sjɔ̃/	apprissiez /a.pʁi.sje/	apprissent /a.pʁis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	apprends /a.pʁɑ̃/	—	apprenons /a.pʁə.nɔ̃/	apprenez /a.pʁə.ne/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Derived terms

• apprenable
• apprendre par cœur ("to memorize")
• ce n’est pas à un vieux singe qu’on apprend à faire des grimaces
• on en apprend tous les jours

Related terms

• apprentissage
• prendre

Paronyms

• appendre

Further reading

• “apprendre”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Middle French

Alternative forms

• aprendre

Etymology

From Old French aprendre, aprandre.

Verb

apprendre

1. to learn

Descendants

• French: apprendre

Norman

Etymology

From Old French aprandre, aprendre, from Latin apprendere, variant of apprehendere, present active infinitive of apprehendō (“grasp, understand, comprehend”).

Verb

apprendre

1. (Guernsey, Jersey) to learn
   • 1903, Edgar MacCulloch, “Proverbs, Weather Sayings, etc.”, in Guernsey Folk Lore‎^[1], page 513:

     Apprins au ber, dure jusqu'au ver.

     What is learnt in the cradle goes with one to the grave.

2. (Jersey) to teach

   Synonym: ensîngni

Derived terms

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

Related terms

• êtudier (“to study”)