How do I construct a negative sentence in the present tense?

Negating sentences in French is quite simple – I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it very quickly! There’s a basic formula which applies to most cases: ne + conjugated verb + pas. Let’s look at some examples: Je danse. (I dance.) Je ne danse pas. (I don’t dance.) Now let’s change the subject of the sentence, the person performing the action. Notice how the verb changes, but nothing else does: Tu danses bien! (You dance well!) Tu ne danses pas bien. (You don’t dance well.) Obviously, you may want to express other negatives. For example, let’s say you would like to express that you never do something: Je ne chante jamais. (I never sing.) Instead of ‘pas’ we use ‘jamais’ to express never. Now let’s have a look at how our construction would change if we wanted to add another verb, such as ‘aimer’ (to like). So: Je n’aime pas chanter. (I don’t like singing.) Note two things in this sentence: 1) ne becomes n’ because the verb that follows begins with a vowel. 2) We can only ever have one verb in our ‘ne…pas’ sandwich. All other verbs must be placed after the ‘pas’. Let’s practice a couple more sentences and then we can move on to negatives in other tenses.