French Avoir Envie Meaning + Examples

The French expression “avoir envie” means both “to want” and “to fancy”. It is used to express desires and wishes. It is formed by combining “avoir”, followed by the preposition “de” and an infinitive. The usage of this expression requires that you know how to conjugate “avoir” (to have).

“Envie” meaning

In French, the noun “envie“ translates to both “wish” and “desire”. Hence, the expression “avoir envie” can translate to both “to have the wish to” and “to have the desire to.

Example sentences using “avoir envie”

In example first example sentence below, “de” appears as “d'” because the verb “aller” (to go) begins with a vowel.

Martin a envie d’aller à la plage. Martin wants to go to the beach.
J’ai envie de manger. I want to eat.
Qu’est-ce que tu a envie de faire? What do you want to do?
As-tu envie de rester ici? Do you want to stay here?
Elles ont envie d’aller à la fête. They want to go to the party.
Désolé, je n’ai pas envie de faire ça. Sorry, I don’t want to do that.

The expression “avoir envie” can also be expressed in the negation: “Ne + avoir conjugated” + pas + envie de + invinitive”.

Il a envie de jouer au tennis. He wants to play tennis.
Avez-vous envie de nager? Do you want to swim?

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David Issokson

David Issokson is a lifelong language enthusiast. His head is swimming with words and sounds as he speaks over six languages. Of all the languages he speaks, he's the most passionate about French! David has helped hundreds of students to improve their French in his private online lessons. When procrastinating working on his site, FrenchLearner.com, David enjoys his time skiing and hiking in Teton Valley, Idaho.

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