If there's one verb the French use a lot, it's “aller” (to go). You can conjugate it in any number of ways and in any number of contexts, so make sure you stay until the end to find out all its uses, and believe me, we French use them all, especially every day!
Most common uses of Aller
The famous “ça va” with which you can literally make conversation. It's used both as a question and an answer. In fact, I think it's overused. For variety, I use “tu vas bien ?” “quels nouvelles ?” or “ça fait longtemps, qu'est-ce que tu deviens?” if you haven't seen the person in ages.
Then, allez, simply conjugated in the second person plural as encouragement. It's kind of our c'mon. You'll hear it most often at sporting events: “allez les bleus” (“go blue”), or when someone wants to get a group of people moving: “allez, on y va” (“let's go”).
Here's another one, “on y va” “let's go”, I might use it at the start of my videos when I say allez, c'est parti, allez, on y va!
The Gallicisms
Gallicisms “y aller” or “s'en aller”, well, let me remind you that a gallicism is an ancient construction specific to the French language and has nothing logical about it. So, y aller means to go somewhere or to leave, for example, j'y vais demain. Allez, j'y vais, à plus tard, well, I'm leaving, see you later. S'en aller, je m'en vais, I'm leaving, again.
Near futur (future proche) instead of futur simple
Of course, I've saved the best for last. Our beloved futur proche, which has even replaced the future simple tense in everyday use. Je vais visiter ce musée la semaine prochaine. We use the verb aller in the present tense, followed by an infinitive. It avoids unnecessarily saturating your brain with a tense that's hardly ever used, the future simple. In fact, I tell my students not to learn it if they don't feel the need to.
Bonus tip: I was going to in French
Uou can say “I was about to” very easily in French by conjugating the verb aller in the imperfect tense. J'allais t'inviter mais tu m'as dit que tu n'étais pas disponible. I was going to invite but you've just told me you weren't available.
You see, aller is a multitasking verb that you shouldn't neglect, just like etiquette, because it's not just language that counts. If you speak French well but don't know your etiquette, you'll make a few faux-pas, but don't worry, I'll explain it all in another video!
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