Languages › French All About the French Verb Falloir Print Tara Moore/Getty Images French Grammar Pronunciation & Conversation Vocabulary Resources For Teachers By ThoughtCo Team Updated on December 27, 2018 Falloir is an irregular impersonal French verb that is better known in its conjugated form: il faut. Falloir means "to be necessary" or "to need." It is impersonal, meaning that it has only one grammatical person: the third person singular. It may be followed by the subjunctive, an infinitive, or a noun. Examples of Falloir Il faut partirIt's necessary to leaveIl faut que nous partionsWe have to leaveIl faut de l'argent pour faire çaIt's necessary to have / You need money to do thatWhen falloir is followed by an infinitive or noun, it may be used with an indirect object pronoun to indicate who or what needs whatever comes next:Il faut mangerIt's necessary to eatIl nous faut mangerWe have to eatIl faut une voitureIt's necessary to have a carIl me faut une voitureI need a car Read More Falloir - to be necessary By ThoughtCo Team Expressions with Falloir Falloir is used in a number of expressions, including:ce qu'il faut - what is neededIl a bien fallu ! - I/We/They had to!s'il le faut - if (it's) necessaryFaudrait voir à voir (informal) - Come on! Come off it!Il faut ce qu'il faut (informal) - You've got to do things right S'en falloir The impersonal pronominal construction s'en falloir means to be missing or short of something, as in "this action did not occur because something was missing":Tu as raté son appel, il s'en est fallu de 10 minutesYou missed his call by 10 minutesJe n'ai pas perdu, mais il s'en est fallu de peuI very nearly lost (I didn't lose, but it was close) Conjugations Here are the most common tenses of falloir. Present tense il fautImperfect il fallaitFuture il faudra Cite this Article Format mla apa chicago Your Citation Team, ThoughtCo. "All About the French Verb Falloir." ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/french-verb-falloir-1368847. Team, ThoughtCo. (2023, April 5). All About the French Verb Falloir. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/french-verb-falloir-1368847 Team, ThoughtCo. "All About the French Verb Falloir." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/french-verb-falloir-1368847 (accessed May 11, 2024). copy citation