Venir or aller, aller or venir. You're hesitating, aren't you? And that's normal, these two French verbs are very close, they both evoke the notion of movement. What's more, there's a usage that has nothing to do with movement, so stick around until the end to find out more about this rule that many French people don't know.
Let's start with aller, which indicates a direction, a movement from one place to another.
Je suis à Lille, demain, je vais à Paris, so I'm moving towards that place.
By the way, do you know why we say "je vais, tu iras, nous allons"? These 3 radicals v- ir- and all- come from three Latin verbs: vadere (to go, to move forward), ire (to go, to walk), ambulare, alare (to stroll). Ambulare is also found in the verb déambuler. Je déambule dans les rues de Paris, in other words, I'm walking without a precise goal.
Let's move on to venir, indicating a provenance, a movement towards the place where you are.
Je suis à Lille, demain mon ami (who lives in Paris) vient me rendre visite. This is also why you can say, je viens des USA, du Japon ou du Mexique.
Venir can also be used in the sense of accompanying someone.
Nous allons au ciné ce soir, viens avec nous, or put another way, accompagne-nous.
Careful, you can make a very simple sentence like je viens, on va boire un coup au bus magique, ça vous dit? Okay, on vient. It works for venir, but not for aller. You can't say je vais, you have to use a complement, j'y vais, here a complement of place, je vais avec elle, here a person.
Now comes the moment of great revelation: venir and aller are interchangeable if followed by a preposition indicating direction. It is therefore possible to say: je vais souvent faire mes courses dans ce magasin or je viens souvent faire mes courses dans ce magasin. Many French people are unaware of this possibility - astonishing, isn't it?
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