10 verbs to use instead of “have”

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jrineakter
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Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2025 7:18 am

10 verbs to use instead of “have”

Post by jrineakter »

Did you notice the difference in register in this dialogue? You saw that we used the verb "avoir" and replaced it with other verbs. In my opinion, it's a good idea to learn some more advanced vocabulary to avoid always saying avoir, avoir, avoir. And today, I suggest you discover 10 verbs that you can use to replace the verb "avoir" and speak a little more advanced French.

The verb "avoir" is one of the most used verbs in the French language. You know the two auxiliaries "avoir" and "être". And the fact that avoir is a very used verb makes it a bit of a catch-all verb, that is to say a verb that has lots of different meanings. If you look in a dictionary, you will see that avoir has lots of meanings. And sometimes, it is a bit complex for non-French speakers because they hear "avoir" and they cannot understand exactly what it means. Learning synonyms for the verb "avoir" has several advantages for you.

First, it allows you to be more nuanced in your remarks, to be more precise.

Second, it saves you from repeating yourself and using the same verb all the time.

Third, it really helps you expand your vocabulary.

And fourthly, it helps you to speak in a little more formal French.

Before moving on to the content, I inform you that you can download your free PDF sheet . The link is in the profile description or in the "i" as info at the top. In fact, it is a sheet that includes all of these alternatives to the verb "avoir" with examples etc. So you can download your sheet. Let's now look at 10 alternatives to the verb "avoir".

First: own.
Here, to possess replaces the verb "to have" in the sense of being the owner of something, having a good, an object, as property, it belongs to us. It is used especially for something concrete, something that we can touch and not something abstract.

For example, you can replace the sentence "my russia whatsapp number data parents have a house in the countryside" with the sentence "my parents own a house in the countryside". They own it, the house is theirs.

Second synonym: to hold.
The meaning is quite close. Here, we are really in the sense of the verb "to have" in the sense of possessing, being the owner. To hold, we can use it either with something concrete, that we can touch in real, or something abstract.

In the first use, hold + something concrete, we often talk about an object, hold an object or hold a document. It is something that we own, that is ours, that is in our possession.

For example: Passengers on this train must have a travel card, they must have a ticket, they must have it in their possession.

“Detain” is slightly more formal than “possess.”

The second use, to hold + something abstract, it can be used in the context of a record, we hold a record, or we hold information. You see these are things that we cannot touch, we cannot touch a record.
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