presentation conjugation in french

Learn the Conjugations for "Présenter" (to Present)

A Lesson in Conjugating a French Verb to Mean "Introduced"

• Pronunciation & Conversation
• Resources For Teachers

The French verb  présenter  means "to introduce" or "to present." While it's easy enough to remember because it's similar to the English, you will still need to conjugate it to say "presented" or "introducing." The good news is that this is a regular verb and a brief lesson will introduce you to its most important conjugations. 

The Basic Conjugations of  Présenter

French verb conjugations tend to worry French students because you have so many words to memorize. Where English gives us only a few verb forms for the present, future, and past tenses, French gives us a new word for each subject pronoun within each tense.

However, with a word like  présenter , which is a  regular - er verb , the conjugations are just a little easier. That's because it follows the most common conjugation pattern found in the French language. If you've studied a few verbs already, the endings you see here should look familiar.

The indicative verb mood is the most common and it includes the basic tenses you'll need for most conversations. Using the chart, you can find the appropriate conjugation that corresponds to the subject and the tense of your sentence. As an example,  je présente  means "I am presenting" while  nous présentions  means "we introduced."

The Present Participle of  Présenter

For regular verbs, forming the  present participle  is simple. Just add  -ant  to the verb stem and you have the word  présentant.

Présenter  in the Compound Past Tense

While you can use the imperfect for the past tense, you may find the  passé composé  easier to remember. This is a compound that requires the  past participle   présenté , which tells us that the act of introducing has already happened.

The only conjugation you need to worry about here is transforming  the auxiliary verb  avoir  into the present tense. You'll then follow that with  présenté . For example, "I introduced" is  j'ai présenté  and "we introduced" is  nous avons présenté .

More Simple Conjugations of  Présenter

While the forms of  présenter  above should be your focus at first, there are a few more simple conjugations you may need at times. For example,  the subjunctive  is helpful when you need to question the act of introducing and  the conditional  is used when it's dependent on something else. Both  the passé simple  and  the imperfect subjunctive  are literary forms and typically only found in written French.

You may not need  the imperative  for a verb like  présenter  often, but it's good to know that when you do use it the subject pronoun is not required.

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How to Master the French Present Tense Once and for All

The French present tense is the only tense you truly need to know to get by on a trip to France.

You can use it to talk about the present of course but the French sometimes use it to talk about future events as well.

And while it has the reputation of being illogical and hard to master, nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, you can master the present tense conjugation of most French verbs in a matter of weeks if you focus on learning the most common conjugation patterns first.

After reading this article, you’ll know exactly when to use the French present tense and how to quickly master it (oh and the free bonus at the end will help you make sure it doesn’t take forever).

When should you use the French present tense?

The French present tense is used much more often than its English counterpart. For example, you would use it to talk about:

• What’s happening and how you’re feeling
• Habits and facts
• What’s going to happen soon

To talk about what you’re doing and how you’re feeling

You can use the French present tense to talk about what’s happening as you’re speaking.

For example, you would use it to say you’re eating a jambon beurre (ham butter ) sandwich or to describe anything happening as you speak.

This makes it the equivalent of the English present tense as well as of the present progressive (be + ing form).

Qu’est-ce que tu fais ? Je mange

What are you doing? I’m eating/ I eat

To talk about habits and facts

Naturally, you can also use the French present tense to talk about habits, facts, and universal truths. Just like in English.

Quel genre de musique est-ce que tu aimes ?

J’aime beaucoup la musique classique

What kind of music do you like?

I really like classical music

To talk about what’s about to happen

If you know an event is going to happen in a few hours, days or more rarely weeks, you can use the French present tense to talk about it.

In this case, you usually add words such as “demain” (tomorrow), “lundi” (Monday) or “la semaine prochaine” (next week).

Je retourne à Londres demain

I’m going back to London tomorrow

Let me let you in on a little secret now!

As a beginner, you can also use the French present tense to talk about events that are far in the future as long as you use a phrase such as “l’année prochaine” (next year) to add context.

While this isn’t grammatically correct, people won’t have any problem understanding you and this is an easy way to talk about the future if you don’t know how to conjugate the French future tense yet.

How to conjugate the French present tense?

Conjugating verbs in the French present tense is simply a matter of using the right ending.

Before you start learning the endings of French verbs, you need to know that there are two kinds of French verbs.

• regular verbs
• irregular verbs.

Regular verbs

Regular verbs follow a pattern you can quickly learn.

Once you know the endings of the three different kinds of regular verbs, you can easily conjugate the large majority of French verbs which is why learning these regular patterns should be your number one priority.

French regular verbs come in three flavors:

• Verbs ending in ER
• Verbs ending in IR
• Verbs ending in RE

Now let’s see what patterns these verbs follow!

Regular verbs ending in ER

It’s estimated that 90% of French verbs end in ER.

If you know how to conjugate ER verbs, you will be able to conjugate most French verbs in the present tense.

Pretty awesome, right?

Note : one rebellious ER verb decided to be irregular: aller (to go).

This is a common French verb, so you have to learn to conjugate it separately. I apologize on behalf of the French population.

This may look like a lot of endings for just one tense but these forms are all pronounced the same way (except for “mangez” and “mangeons” so you only have three pronunciations to remember.

Je mange un gâteau

I’m eating a cake

Tu manges un gâteau

You (singular) are eating a cake

Il/elle/on mange un gâteau

He/she is eating a cake

Nous mangeons un gâteau

We are eating a cake

Vous mangez un gâteau

You (plural or polite form) are eating a cake

Ils/elles mangent un gâteau

They’re eating a cake

Regular verbs ending in IR

IR verbs are estimated to represent 5% of French verbs.

These are the patterns that regular IR verbs follow, but there are also some irregular IR verbs like “venir” (to come).

Je finis à 20 heures

I finish (work) at 8PM

Tu finis à 20 heures

You (singular) finish at 8PM

Il/elle/on finit à 20 heures

He/she finishes at 8PM

Nous finissons à 20 heures

We finish at 8PM

Vous finissez à 20 heures

You (plural or polite form) finish at 8PM

Ils/elles finissent à 20 heures

They finish at 8PM

Regular verbs ending in RE

Regular RE verbs follow the following pattern:

Je vends des fleurs

I sell flowers

Tu vends du chocolat

You sell chocolate

Il/elle/on vend des voitures

He sells cars

Nous vendons des vêtements

We sell clothes

Vous vendez des bougies ?

Do you sell candles?

Ils/elles vendent de tout

They sell a little bit of everything

The dreaded irregular verbs

Unlike regular verbs, irregular French verbs don’t follow the patterns mentioned above, so you have to learn the conjugation of each irregular verb individually.

However, you don’t have to learn how to conjugate every irregular verb there is. Learning the most common ones is largely enough when you begin learning French.

Like the 100 most common French words , these are verbs you will find in most conversations.

For example, “avoir” (to have) and “être” (to be) are said to be found in more than 20% of French sentences.

The following irregular verbs are the most common irregular French verbs and the irregular verbs I recommend you learn first.

How to memorize all these crazy conjugations?

Learning the French present tense is essential. But you don’t need to spend hours reciting conjugations tables to master it.

Here is what I recommend you do instead:

• Learn the regular patterns of ER, IR and RE verbs
• Learn the common irregular verbs listed on this page
• Regularly get exposure to the French language and you’ll naturally learn to conjugate the remaining verbs

Practice the present tense in the comment section below

Now that you know the theory, it’s time to practice.

Choose a verb and create a sentence with it in the comment section below this article!

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Benjamin Houy

Benjamin Houy is a native French speaker and tea drinker with a BA degree in Applied Foreign Languages and a passion for languages. After teaching French and English in South Korea for 7 months as part of a French government program, he created French Together™ to help English speakers learn conversational French.

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Your Complete Guide to French Verb Conjugation

Conjugating verbs in French means to change the ending based on the verb’s subject, tense or mood—and learning how to do this is a cornerstone of speaking French. 

Whether you’ve been daydreaming about chatting with a waiter at a chic Parisian bistro or traveling through Marrakech , you’ll need to learn French conjugation to reach your goals.

In this post, we’ll provide a comprehensive overview of French verb conjugation to help kickstart your fluency. 

Let’s get into it!

What Is French Verb Conjugation?

Three french verb types, present tense french conjugation, irregular verbs in the present tense, past french conjugation, passé composé tense, imparfait tense, plus-que-parfait tense, future french conjugation, futur simple tense, futur antérieur tense, future tense with aller, the french conditional, present conditional tense, past conditional tense, french imperative and subjunctive moods, imperative mood, subjunctive mood, more french conjugation resources, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Conjugation means to change a verb in a way that reflects different meanings—either in terms of its subject, tense or mood.

The usual way of conjugating verbs in French is to remove the ending of the infinitive form and add a new ending.

The endings are determined by:

• Who is performing the action
• Which tense and mood you are using

The pattern for how conjugation works depends on the specific verb ending , though it can vary with irregular verbs .

We’ll cover these verb endings in the next section before moving on to conjugation rules for different tenses and moods.

In their infinitive form , French verbs fall into three categories based on their endings:

Group one: Verbs ending in -er

Group two: Verbs ending in -ir

Group three: All other verbs (verbs that don’t end in -er or -ir , irregular verbs, and verbs which actually do end in -ir but have a present participle that doesn’t end in -issant )

Each of these verb categories has its own conjugation rules, which you’ll see later in the post.

Verbs that have the -er ending (group one) are by far the most useful regular verbs in the French language—that is because some 90% of all French verbs have this ending! So, if you master this group of verbs and the associated tenses, you should be well on your way to French verb mastery.

First, let’s focus on the present tense. Just like in English, the French present tense is used to describe actions that are currently happening, actions that happen repeatedly or general truths .

In the present tense, each French verb has two parts: a pronoun, and a conjugated verb.

The French pronouns are as follows:

• Tu — You (informal)
• On — One / we 
• Vous — You (formal)  / You all
• Ils —  They (male groups or mixed gender)
• Elles — They (female groups)

Note that the pronoun o n can be used to mean “we” for speaking generally or in the passive voice. 

Let’s look at examples of conjugation of regular verbs for each verb type, putting together the pronoun and its matching conjugation. I’ve gone ahead and underlined the verb endings: these are the same ending used for all regular verbs.

We’ll take a look at the -er verb cacher (to hide), the -ir verb finir (to finish) and the -re verb (from the third group) prendre (to take).

Their conjugation in present tense is as follows:

French grammar has a lot of exceptions, and this applies to conjugations as well.

Lots of the most important verbs in French are irregular , including: être (to be), avoir (to have), aller (to go), and faire (to do).

They’re conjugated as follows:

The passé composé is one of three French past tenses. 

It’s used for events that happened completely in the past, with a defined start and end date, and events that began in the past but continue into the present.

To conjugate in the passé composé , we use this formula:

pronoun + auxiliary verb ( avoir or être ) in the present tense + past participle

Note that when using avoir (to have) and être (to be) in the past tense as auxiliary verbs, they do not mean “to have” and “to be.” Think of them as more like placeholders in this case.

In the  passé composé , cacher uses the auxiliary verb avoir and the verb venir (to come) uses the auxiliary verb être.

They are conjugated as follows:

As you can see, each of these verbs uses the present-tense conjugation of avoir and être as auxiliary verbs. 

Why so many parentheses? When you use ê tre as the auxiliary verb, you must change the past participle to agree in gender and number with the pronoun.

You might be wondering: When do you use one auxiliary verb or the other?

In part, you have to memorize which verb’s past tense uses avoir and which uses être.  Don’t worry, though—there aren’t too many être verbs (in fact, here’s a list of all of them ).

An easy way to start memorizing them is to remember that most of them involve some sort of movement, such as the above example, venir (to come). 

The imparfait  is used  to express events that happened continuously in the past.

For example, you would use this tense to talk about something that you habitually did during your childhood but that you no longer do.

Some learners may find this conjugation easier because it doesn’t involve any auxiliary verbs!

The -re verb prendre conjugated in the imparfait looks like this:

These endings are the same for -re, -er and -ir regular verbs. 

Finally, the plus-que-parfait describes events that happened completely in the past, that happened before other events in the past.

Think of the sentence: “I had fallen asleep before she arrived.”

Because both events (the falling asleep and the arriving) happened in the past, but the falling asleep happened first, you would conjugate this verb using the  plus-que-parfait.

Get ready, because we’re about to combine the previous two tenses you just learned to create something beautiful:

To conjugate the plus-que-parfait, use the same formula as the passé composé (pronoun + auxiliary verb + past participle), but conjugate the auxiliary verb in the imparfait tense.

Let’s go back to our friends cacher and venir to see how this tense compares to the passé composé.

As you can see, the past participles remain exactly the same, and the only thing that changes is the conjugation of the auxiliary verb.

We’re heading into the future ! The futur simple allows you to express actions that will happen in the future  with almost definite certainty.

With -er and -ir verbs, you just add the endings to the infinitive form of the verb.

With -re (third group) verbs, the process is almost the same, but we have to delete the -e at the end of the verb.

For example:

The second way to talk about the future is by using the futur antérieur .

This tense is used to describe future events that happen before other future events, such as with the sentence: “by the time you arrive, I will have cleaned the house.”

You’re well-prepared for this tense because the conjugation is similar to the passé composé and  plus-que-parfait.

The only difference is that you’ll conjugate your auxiliary verb, avoir or être, in the futur simple tense.

Take the following two examples:

You know how in English you can say, “I will do my homework,” but you can also say “I am going to do my homework”?

Well, French has a similar construction. You can talk about future events using the formula:

pronoun + present-tense form of aller + action verb in infinitive

As an example, let’s use the verb jouer (to play).

The present conditional tense is used to express what “would” or “could” happen.

It uses the same formula as the futur simple : add the proper endings directly onto the infinitive for -er and -ir verbs.

Likewise, for -re verbs, we take off the -e and add the endings.

Use the past conditional tense to talk about something that might have happened in the past, but didn’t. It’s like the English construction “would have.”

We’re going to apply the same concept as in the futur antérieur, except that instead of using the futur simple form of the auxiliary verb, we’ll use the conditional form as follows:

French conjugation isn’t just about tense—it’s also about mood.

So far we’ve been working with the indicative mood, used for expressing statements of fact or objectivity.

But there are two other important moods in French:

• Imperative mood : used to express orders and commands
• Subjunctive mood : used in situations where there is doubt or uncertainty

In most verbs, the imperative (giving orders)  uses the same conjugation as the present simple tense. For example:

Prendre (to take) :

(Tu) prends ça !  ([You] Take this!)

(Nous) prenons ça ! (Let’s take this!)

(Vous ) prenez ça ! ([You/You all] Take this!)

Note that there’s no imperative conjugation for je, il/elle/on or ils/elles .

A few irregular verbs do have irregular forms in the imperative mood as well:

Être (to be):

(Tu) sois gentil ! ([You] Be nice!)

(Nous) soyons gentil ! (Let’s be nice!)

(Vous) soyez gentil ! ([You/You all] Be nice!)

Avoir (to have):

(Tu) aie confiance ! ([You] Have faith!)

(Nous) ayons confiance ! (Let’s have faith!)

(Vous) ayez confiance ! ([You/You all] Have faith!)

To fully explain the French subjunctive would require a whole other article . For our purposes, think of the subjunctive mood as a way to express doubt or emotion.

Je sais qu’il est ici (I know that he is here) uses the indicative mood, but…

Je doute qu’il soit ici (I doubt he is here) uses the subjunctive mood.

In most verbs, the only difference between the normal (indicative) conjugation and the subjunctive conjugation is that you have to add an i in the nous and vous forms.

Nous cachons vs. Nous cachions

Vous cachez vs. Vous cachiez

However, some verbs are exceptions and have different conjugations. This is the case for our favorite irregulars: être, aller, avoir and faire:

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This may seem like a lot of information to digest, but soon, it’ll all feel like second-nature . Just think of all the French learners who have mastered this before you!

As you learn, I recommend making use of one of the many great online conjugators available for free, as well as fantastic resources for practicing what you’ve just learned.

WordReference’s Conjugator

WordReference’s Conjugator has to be the most comprehensive tool of its kind. Just type in the verb and every possible conjugation appears.

WordReference is well-organized and succinctly explains every conjugation, including highlighted stem changes and rarely used (mostly literary) conjugations.

Conjugation-fr

Conjugation-fr is another great practice resource. It offers a database of over 12,000 French verbs, making it perfect for whenever you get stuck in the middle of French reading or writing practice.

One advantage of this tool is that it gives a brief summary of each verb along with its translation. Plus, its accessible format makes for easy reading and learning.

Francais Interactif

If you want some extra practice, the University of Texas has made French conjugation exercises freely available at Francais Interactif .

They offer over a hundred different lessons, so there’s truly something for everyone here! You can also filter exercises by the type of verb and the verb tense, for extra targeted practice.

ListeningPractice.org

This website offers a free game to practice your French conjugation skills .

It has a ton of options for customization: you can sort by how common the verb is, by tense, by pronoun or by level of difficulty.

You can even make an account to track your progress over time!

Once you’ve mastered the basics of French conjugation, you’ll start to notice the patterns while practicing your French reading and listening skills .

As you get used to seeing and hearing French verbs used in everyday French sentences, it will reinforce those verb conjugations so you remember them even better.

One great way to get exposure to the language is to watch French movies and TV shows — especially if you can turn on subtitles.

Conjugating French correctly takes commitment and practice . Fortunately, most verbs you’ll come across fall into predictable categories in all their forms.

In time, you’ll master irregular verbs as well as uncommon French tenses that show up in literature.

If you keep practicing, French conjugation will become second nature to you in no time at all!

FluentU has a wide variety of great content, like interviews, documentary excerpts and web series, as you can see here:

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For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this:

Practice and reinforce all the vocabulary you've learned in a given video with learn mode. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning, and play the mini-games found in our dynamic flashcards, like "fill in the blank."

All throughout, FluentU tracks the vocabulary that you’re learning and uses this information to give you a totally personalized experience. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned.

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6 Tips For How To Master French Verb Conjugations

How to master French verb conjugations

This page provides a comprehensive introduction to French verb conjugations with six very specific learning tips. One of the single most daunting questions every new student to learning French asks is: “What is the best say to learn the French verb conjugations?”. This post will answer that question and much more.

There are so many verbs and conjugation tables that you’ll find either online or in books will make your head spin. At first glance, you’ll see pages and pages of verbs with lots of confusing and advanced tenses. This post will help you to focus on what you really need to learn.

What is a verb conjugation?

One of the first and most important things to understand is: What is French verb conjugation ?

In English, all verbs have what are called “endings”. These are the last few letters of very that change depending on the subject of the sentence.

For example: I speak versus her or she speaks. In English, adding the -s is required for the he/she form.

This is no different in French.

So, to answer the question, a French verb conjugation is the act of either writing out or saying a verb using all of the personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, etc.).

If you haven’t learned already, this lesson explains the French personal pronouns .

In a nutshell you have: Je (I), tu (you informal), il, elle and on (he, she and one), nous (we), vous (you plural and formal) and ils/elles (they mixed company and female only).

How to conjugate a French verb

The following is a basic French verb conjugation. Below the verb, I will write out several terms which are not fun to learn but necessary for learning French.

Parler = to speak Je parl e I speak Tu parl es You speak Il, elle, on parl e He, she one speaks Nous parl ons We speak Vous parl ez You speak Ils, elles parl ent They speak

“Parler” means to speak”. Parler is the “infinitive” or “to” form of the verb to speak. Many French teachers called this the “mother from.

Within the word “ parler “, there are two things to highlight: 1) The “parl” part of the word is called the “stem” or “root” of the verb and 2) The -er is what makes this the “to” or infinitive of the verb.

The next key thing to highlight is the bolded last letters of each person. These are called “verb endings”.

When learning how to conjugate French verbs, you’ll always have to 1) Identify the stem (parl in this case) and 2) know which endings to attach to each person.

How to pronounce each person for the verb parler

At first glace, there is no way to know how to go about pronouncing the verb parler.

There are several key points here.

Firstly, the “to” form is pronounced “parlay”. The -er sounds like -ay as in play.

Secondly, the vous form (you formal and plural) has the EXACT same pronunciation. Thus, the to form (parler) and vous form (parlez) sound identical: “parlay”.

Here’s the third key point: The Je form (I), tu form (you informal), il, elle and on (he, she, one) as well as the ils and elles form (they) ALL sound the exact same. Simply say “parl”.

• On the je form, ignore the -e. It completely silent.
• On the tu form, ignore the -es. They are also completely silent.
• On the il, elle and on forms, ignore the -e. It is silent.
• On the ils and elles form, ignore the -ent. In fact the -ent is ALWAYS silent on ALL French verbs.

Thus, now that we’ve established that both the “to” form (parler) and “vous” form (parlez) sound the same, an je/tu/il/elle/on/ils/elles forms all sound the same (parl), that leaves us with one final form: nous.

For the nous form, “nous parlons”, simply say, “parl + nasal ons”. To say this sound correctly it’s useful to have a good French teacher.

How do I go about conjugating other verbs?

Now that we’ve established the basics of how to conjugate a verb, the next logical question is: How do I conjugate more verbs?

One of the keys to leaning French verbs is identifying set patterns.

If we take the French verb “regarder” as an example, you will see that the “to” form ends in -er. This means that 1) The stem of the verb is “regard” and 2) The verb endings are EXACTLY the same as parler.

Let’s look at the conjugation. Again, I’ll underline the stem and highlight the endings.

Regarder = to watch, look at Je regard e I watch, look at Tu regard es You watch, look at Il, elle on regard e He, she one watches, looks at Nous regard ons We watch, look at Vous regard ez You watch, look at Ils, elles regard ent They watch, look at

Wow…that’s easy! Do all French verbs work the same way?

Unfortunately the answer to this question is “no”. It would be nice if all French verbs simply followed the pattern of removing the -er on the “to” form, identifying the stem and simply adding the right endings.

In reality, life is not that simple and neither are French verbs.

I’ve heard the terms “regular” and “irregular” verbs – What does that mean?

If you’ve surfed YouTube videos for learning French or looked at other websites, you will surely have come across the terms French “regular” and “irregular” verbs.

What are they?

In French, there are three groups of what are called regular verbs . Each group is identified with the last two letters of the infinitive (to) forms: -er, -ir and -re .

Each group has its own set of verb endings. We just learned the endings are -e, -es ,-e, -ons, -ez and -ent for parler. These are the same endings for ALL regular -er verbs.

Thus, all of the verbs in the group of regular -ir and and all the verbs under the group of regular -re verbs have the exact same endings.

I know what you’re thinking: By now your head this spinning. This is the reason that if you’ve a pure beginner and have never leaned French, it’s a very good idea to have a teacher further explain the basics.

What is an irregular verb? What makes it “irregular”?

Another key term which you’ll hear in French lessons is “irregular” verb. What does this mean?

Simply put, an irregular verb is a verb that does NOT follow the conjugation patterns (or ending patterns) of a regular -er, -ir, or -re verb.

This means that while the last two letters of the infinitive form might be the same, the endings are different. The difference in endings is what makes the verb “irregular”.

The following two verbs illustrate this point and an explanation will follow.

The main point here is that although the “to” or infinitive forms of parler (to speak) and aller (to go) both end in -er, the verb endings of aller are different .

The endings of aller are -ais, -as, -a, -ons, -ez and -ont. These are NOT the endings of regular -er verbs. This the verb aller is considered “irregular”.

Should I learn some irregular verbs?

Indeed, there are some irregular verbs which you should learn. The following three irregular verbs are extremely common and are necessary to learn.

• Être to be
• Avoir to have
• Faire to make, do

While I could make a much longer list, I don’t want to scare you away from learning French. This is simply a short list of essential and initial irregular verbs.

Tips for learning French verb conjugations

After having taught French since 2013 and as a learner of many languages myself, I have a number of tips for learning French verb conjugation.

1) Forget about memorization

The first tip might sound a bit silly and counter intuitive, but I’m serious. Forget about trying to list massive lists of French verbs. This will just drive you mad.

Instead, let your eyes simply see the verbs. When you see them for the first time, try sounding them out aloud.

If you don’t know how to pronounce the verbs, do a quick search on YouTube and you’ll surely find some useful videos.

The most important thing is to let your eyes and ears get exposure to the verbs. You’ll see the verbs over and over again. Hence, with some time and persistence leaning will occur naturally without gruelling and unpleasant memorization.

2) Say the verbs aloud and don’t say them in the exact order

The second tip is to say the verbs aloud. Don’t simply write lists over and over. This is boring and usually doesn’t work.

I got the second part of this tip from Camille’s article called The Secret To Mastering French Verb Conjugation on Frenchtoday.com.

When you’re trying to learn the verb conjugations, don’t say the verbs in the exact order (je, tu, il, elle, etc.). Mix it up. For example, say the “nous” form first, then say the “tu” form.

3) Learn one verb at a time

As an adult learner, don’t put too much pressure on yourself and try to learn an entire list of top-100 French verbs , for example. This will only lead to frustration.

There’s a famous book on Amazon that people like to buy: 501 French Verbs .

While I do think this is a good book to own as a reference, I think you’ll make your head explode if you try to memorize all 501 verbs! Don’t do it!

Each time you sit down to study, try to just focus on one, two or three verbs at most. Again, a few YouTube videos will help.

4) Try some online lessons

One of the single most effective ways to learn French verb conjugations I’ve found has been to work with a private one-on-one teacher.

In my online lessons, I’ve been helping students to learn French verbs since 2013. Here are some student testimonials .

A good teacher will help you by “drilling” verbs. This means that she or he call out different forms and you’ll have to give the right forms.

For example, teacher might say “she speaks” and you’ll have to come up with “elle parle”.

I’ve found that drilling verbs WITH ANOTHER HUMAN BEING has been the single most effective way to go about mastering French verbs.

5) Try some exercises in books

As much as I dislike doing exercises in books (I’d rather sweep the garage!), I find this activity to be very helpful.

In my blog post on the best books for learning French , I suggested the two titles Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French All-in-One as well as The Ultimate French Review and Practice.

The reason I suggested these two books is that I like their verb exercises.

As an adult learner, one thing you can do is read through the exercises and corresponding answers. I’ve found this activity to be very effective between online lessons.

6) Watch movies with French subtitles

This tip might not be very suitable for people who are the very initial stages of learning French, but I’ve found it to be very helpful.

If you spend any amount of time trying to learn French verbs, you’ll surely benefit from this tip.

Simply try to watch a French TV show or movie with French subtitles. One great way to to do this is to get a subscription to Lingopie they offer streaming French content showing both English and French subtitles simultaneously.

Netflix also has lots of French programs.

Try to watch one scene at a time. As you’re watching it – even if you’re a beginner – try to identify some verbs you might have already seen. In particular, make a mental note of the form of the verb (Je, tu, il, elle, etc.). You might be surprised by the number of verbs you recognize!

The purpose of this article was not to teach every single verb in French but to provide a comprehensive overview of French verb conjugations and provide some useful and applicable learning tips.

I hope this article has helped and wish you all the very best in your adventures learning French. Bonne chance!

Become a pro at French verbs Of all the books and courses out there, we’d like to suggest taking a look at Frenchtoday’s French Conjugation Verb Drills course. Each verb has a six-minute drill which you can use to build confidence fast.

Discover more:

• French vocabulary lists
• French numbers 1-100
• How to read French (pronunciation guide)
• French alphabet (with audio)

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David Issokson

David Issokson is a lifelong language enthusiast. His head is swimming with words and sounds as he speaks over six languages. Of all the languages he speaks, he's the most passionate about French! David has helped hundreds of students to improve their French in his private online lessons. When procrastinating working on his site, FrenchLearner.com, David enjoys his time skiing and hiking in Teton Valley, Idaho.

See all posts by David Issokson

French verb conjugation, irregular verbs

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French Conjugation

In French, you can type in infinitive forms such as " manger ", " partir " ... but also conjugated forms (" mis ", " disait ", " rompu "). The conjugator recognizes reflexive verbs (" s'émouvoir ", " se laver ") and negative verbs (" ne pas pouvoir "), as well as verbal forms with "y" and "en": en prendre , s'en aller , y aller , s'y voir .

The conjugator uses conjugation rules for: the verb , the auxiliaries , the groups and the models . You can click on the corresponding section to learn more.

The conjugator allows you to conjugate any verb as long as it corresponds to an existing conjugation model. They may be imaginary verbs, they may contain spelling mistakes or often be buzz verbs or anglicisms, not yet aggregated to our conjugation tables like déradicaliser, écoresponsabiliser .

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French conjugation: A detailed how-to guide

Conjugating verbs in a variety of tenses is one of the most fundamental skills for properly speaking a language. With French conjugation, we can go a long way with just knowing a few tenses, despite the fact that the language boasts sixteen (!) of them.

Fortunately, French conjugation follows some straightforward rules which apply to all of the tenses.

In this post we’ll cover all the basics of French conjugation to get you started recognizing how to conjugate verbs in French.

This article is brought to you by LingoCulture, Where you can get unlimited private French classes via Zoom with native teachers for a flat monthly rate. It’s the closest thing to immersion you can get without living in a French-speaking country. Click here to learn more.

It’s a pretty in-depth post, broken down into a number of distinct sections. Feel free to scroll through down to the section you need, or click straight through from this outline:

What is conjugation? Other verb forms The infinitive The participle French verb tenses, explained How to conjugate verbs in French Conjugation tables: regular verbs Conjugation tables: être, avoir, and aller Conjugation: compound tenses Conclusion

Now let’s dive in and learn all the basics of French verb conjugation!

What is conjugation?

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of French conjugation, let’s first take a step back so we’re clear on what we mean by conjugation in the first place. This explanation applies as much to French verbs as it does to English verbs.

You can definitely skip this section  if you’re already clear on the concept of verb conjugation! We’ll be introducing several grammatical terms here which we’ll refer to throughout the rest of the post.

When we consider conjugation , we’re referring to the process of changing a verb’s form so that it corresponds with the subject  and the tense . The subject  is the grammatical person  carrying out the verb’s action, while the tense  reflects the specific time and mood  intended by the speaker.

In both English and French, the subject can be one of six grammatical persons : first-, second-, and third-person, in both singular and plural. To show what we mean by these, let’s look at this conjugation table of the English verb to be , conjugated in the present tense:

In addition to conjugating verbs to match the grammatical person, we also conjugate them to a specific tense. A verb tense  indicates when  an action happens, while also placing that action within a mood . By when , tenses indicate timeframes ranging from past  to present  to future . By mood , tenses give the verbs’ actions different measures of certainty .

We’ll leave it at that for now as far as responding to the question of what is conjugation. We’ll go into more detail on tenses in the next section.

What French verb tenses are there?

There are 16 distinct verb tenses in French  that have specific conjugations, as well as several other verb forms  that aren’t technically considered conjugations.

Don’t worry! You can get by just fine using just a handful of French tenses, and in reality most French speakers only use around half of them in everyday speech. Several tenses are only really used in literature, so you’ll never even encounter them in spoken French!

This post isn’t intended as an in-depth treatise on all the verb tenses in French, so we’re not going to dive into too much detail on each one here. Nonetheless, we’ll at least provide a list of French verb tenses  broken down into the four moods : indicative (stating facts), conditional (often in “if” and “would” phrases), subjunctive (theoretical), and imperative (commands). We’ll also cover the other verb forms  that aren’t considered conjugations.

Note that we generally refer to the French tenses and verb forms by their French names. Even though many tenses are similar between languages, it can sometimes be misleading when we try to refer to tenses with translated terms.

Other French verb forms

Before listing the tenses, we should introduce the other verb forms , especially since a couple of these are elements of the compound conjugations in the tenses we’ll list below. These forms aren’t technically conjugations, since they don’t change with respect to a given subject.

The infinitive  is the unconjugated form  of a verb that you’ll find in a dictionary. The infinitive is sometimes used as-is, or else we start with the infinitive and then conjugate the verb to another tense. It’s also an integral part of an easy way to talk about the future , using aller + infinitif . Here are some examples of the infinitif  form:

The participle is an essential form of a verb that can’t stand on its own, but that’s used as an integral part of numerous compound tenses. We’ll see the participle appear in two of the three next verb forms, along with half of the sixteen conjugated tenses!

This verb form exists in both French and English. Here are the French participles  for the same example verbs:

Infinitif passé

The previous form we saw above is the standard infinitive, whereas in French we also acknowledge a past infinitive  form that incorporates the past participle. Here are some examples of the French infinitif passé  form:

Participe présent

In French, this verb form is equivalent to what in English is known as the gerund, though they’re not used in all the same ways in both languages. Check out the French participe présent  forms of several common verbs here, followed by a few example sentences.

• Étant en retard, nous avons décidé de prendre un taxi. – Being late, we decided to take a taxi.
• Ayant quatre jeunes enfants, elle n’est jamais seule. – Having  four young children, she’s never alone.
• Aimant  son chein, elle lui a acheté plusiers cadeaux de noel. – Loving  her puppy, she bought him several Christmas gifts.

Participe passé

The participe passé is a compound verb form with two parts. It’s composed of the participe présent of either avoir or être that we saw above, followed by the participle of the verb in question that we saw just after the infinitive form above.

All the French verb tenses

Now that we’ve seen the individual verb forms that French verbs can take, and before we get into the basics of conjugation, let’s just see a list of the French verb tenses . We’ll break these down by mood, and then explain which tenses within each mood are used in everyday French.

The indicative mood  is used to talk about facts. The indicative is the most common mood used in spoken French and English.

These first four indicative tenses are by far the most common tenses in the French language. The first is the present tense, the next two are past tenses, while the fourth is a future tense. The passé composé is a compound tense built on the participle, while the other three each have unique conjugations:

• Passé composé
• Futur simple

These next two indicative tenses are sometimes used by native French speakers, but they’re less common. They’re both compound conjugations built on the participle:

• Plus-que-parfait
• Futur antérieur

The last two indicative tenses are really only used in literature. You’re only likely to hear them spoken during religious services or theatrical performances. The passé simple has its unique conjugations, while the passé antérieur is built on the participle:

• Passé simple
• Passé antérieur

Conditionnel

The conditional mood is used to talk about potential possibilities. It’s also used to add a level of politeness. There’s some debate among grammarians on whether le conditionnel is a distinct mood or whether these tenses fall under l’indicatif, but since conjugation tables generally treat the conditional separately we’ll consider it as its own mood.

French conditional conjugations translated into English often contain the words could  or would .

There are two French conditional tenses, one for the present and one for the past. Both are fairly common in spoken French. The present conditional tense has its own conjugations, while past conditional tense is built on the participle:

• Présent conditionnel
• Passé conditionnel

The subjunctive mood  is used to evoke uncertainty. The subjunctive is actually very common in French, often being triggered by phrases like il faut que  that are always followed by subjunctive conjugations.

The French present subjunctive tense is used all the time, and has its own conjugations. The past subjunctive is less common, but still used sometimes by native speakers. It’s built on the participle:

• Présent subjonctif
• Passé subjunctif

The other two subjunctive tenses are really relics of historic literature. You’re unlikely to ever hear either of them:

• Imparfait subjonctif
• Plus-que-parfait subjonctif

The final mood is the imperative , which is used to give commands. Imperative conjugations only exist for the singular and plural forms of you in French, as well as for the first-person plural (which you would translate into English with “let’s go” or “let’s finish”).

The only imperative tense that’s really used in French is the present, which has its own conjugations. Nonetheless, an imperative past tense exists on full French conjugation tables.

• Présent impératif
• Passé impératif

How to conjugate verbs in French

Whew, that was a lot of introduction to reach this point where we finally talk about French conjugation!

Now that we’ve seen all the different French verb tenses, as well as the other forms that French verbs can take outside of strict conjugations, we’re ready to really dissect the basics of how to conjugate verbs in French .

French conjugation is actually fairly straightforward for most verbs, since it really just comes down to identifying the verb stem  and adding the right endings . Things get a bit more complicated when we deal with irregular verbs because of some stem changes, but overall, all the tenses are fairly consistent with their respective endings.

In short, for the tenses with unique conjugations, we can sum this up with two simple rules :

1. Start with the verb stem

2. Add the endings

What do we mean by stems and endings? Let’s take a look at each of these two aspects of French verb conjugation in turn.

Note that these rules only apply to the simple tenses that have their own unique conjugations. For compound tenses, we start with one of the simple tenses and just add the participle. In other words, there are really just eight different sets of unique conjugations .

French conjugation: Get the stem

As the basis for all the simple conjugations in French, we start with the verb stem . For regular verbs, we get the stem by simply chopping off the last two letters of the infinitive. It’s that simple!

Even for most irregular verbs this formula for getting the stem is pretty similar, though some have different stems that just need to be learned.

Note that we didn’t include the verb stem as one of the other verb forms outlined above since it never exists independently of the verb endings. We’ll demonstrate this with the regular verbs  from our previous examples:

French conjugation: Add the endings

With regular verbs, all we need to do to conjugate our verbs is to add the right endings to the stem !

Each of the eight simple tenses has a specific set of endings for the six grammatical persons, so we just apply the ending depending on the subject. The exact endings differ a bit for the three main families of regular verbs, but they’re still pretty recognizable for each of the different tenses.

Let’s see this in action in the simple present indicative tense  for the three groups of regular verbs: -er , -ir , and -re verbs. Note that although some of the endings are indeed different between the three groups, they still generally resemble each other across the tense.

Présent indicatif conjugation table

Regular french verb conjugation: simple tenses.

You’re now familiar with the fundamental rule for French verb conjugations: identify the stem  from the infinitive, and add the endings corresponding to the subject and verb tense. With the three groups of regular French verbs, this formula is the same for all eight of the simple tenses.

We already saw the present indicative tense conjugations in the last section. In this section we’ll provide similar conjugation tables for the other seven simple tenses.

Imparfait indicatif conjugation table

Along with the passé composé, the imparfait  tense is one of the two French past tenses used on a regular basis in everyday speech. The endings are all consistent between the three regular verb groups, with just the usual -iss- in the middle of the -ir verb conjugations.

Passé simple conjugation table

The passé simple  isn’t really used in spoken French, though it remains common in literature.

Futur simple conjugation table

We’ve continued to show the same stems for the futur simple  that we established for all three of our regular verb groups. For this tense, however, it’s common to consider the infinitive to be the stem for -er and -ir verbs, while for -re verbs the stem is obtained by just dropping the -e. This approach doesn’t change the conjugations we’ve presented there, it just makes for shorter endings to memorize!

Présent conditionnel conjugation table

The first- and third-person singular conjugations of the présent conditionnel  tense sound the identical to their counterparts in the futur simple, so even native speakers often get these two tenses confused.  Like the futur simple, the stem can also essentially be considered to be the infinitive. The defining feature across nearly all of these conjugations is the -i- immediately after the infinitive stem.

Présent subjonctif conjugation table

The présent subjonctif  tense is very common in spoken and written French. Many of these conjugations sound identical to their counterparts in the présent indicatif or the imparfait, so it takes some practice to know that the subjonctif is indeed being invoked in many spoken contexts.

Imparfait subjonctif conjugation table

The imparfait subjonctif  is essentially only seen in historic texts. Many native speakers have only a vague grasp of this tense. We only include it here for completeness.

Présent impératif conjugation table

The présent impératif  tense is the standard French command form, so there are no conjugations for the third-person nor for the first-person singular. The regular verb conjugations all sound identical to the present indicatif, and only the tu conjugation of the -er verbs has a small spelling difference since it drops the -s.

Irregular verb conjugations: Simple tenses

So far, this post on French verb conjugation has focused primarily on regular verbs. The building blocks of conjugation we’ve covered so far nonetheless still generally apply to irregular verbs! Most of the tenses and their conjugations should still be recognizable  with most irregular verbs, since most only take minor changes to the regular rules we’ve seen.

We’re not going to go into further detail on irregular French verb conjugation in this post. That said, we’ll still include the simple conjugation tables for what are arguably the three most important verbs in the French language: être , avoir , and aller .

Être, Avoir, and Aller conjugations: Simple tenses

Knowing how to conjugate être, avoir, and aller is fundamental in learning French, so we find it pertinent to include these three verbs in our post on conjugation. While these three are among the most-irregular French verbs in many tenses, their conjugations should still demonstrate that the regular endings we saw above are still similar a lot of the time.

Être , meaning to be  in French, is often the first verb French learners learn. Être  is the auxiliary verb used in compound tenses of reflexive verbs, as well as of verbs of movement . We have a dedicated post on être conjugation , as well as another on expressing possession using être .

Avoir , meaning to have in French, is the auxiliary verb  used in compound tenses for most French verbs, just like to have in English. Avoir forms the basis for many idiomatic phrases, many of which we introduce in our post on avoir expressions . Since avoir is such an important verb in French, we give it special attention in our posts on avoir conjugation ,  avoir meanings , and expressing obligation using avoir à .

Aller , meaning to go in French, is the auxiliary verb used to create an easy future form, le futur proche . Following the formula aller + infinitif , the equivalent in English is going to + infinitive . We go into more detail on this verb in our post on aller conjugation .

Since être and avoir are the auxiliary verbs for the compound tenses , we’ll indicate which compound tense is built using their conjugations in each of the simple tenses we list here.

Now let’s see the eight simple tense conjugations for être, avoir, and aller ! Note that, since they’re quite irregular and therefore not transferrable to other verbs, we’re not providing the stem and endings as we did in the regular verb conjugation tables above.

Présent indicatif conjugations: être, avoir, and aller

The passé composé tense  is constructed using these présent indicatif conjugations of être and avoir, followed by the participe.

Imparfait indicatif conjugations: être, avoir, and aller

The plus-que-parfait tense  is constructed using these imparfait indicatif conjugations of être and avoir, followed by the participe.

Passé simple conjugations: être, avoir, and aller

The passé antérieur tense  is constructed using these passé simple conjugations of être and avoir, followed by the participe.

Futur simple conjugations: être, avoir, and aller

The futur antérieur tense  is constructed using these futur simple conjugations of être and avoir, followed by the participe.

Présent conditionnel conjugations: être, avoir, and aller

The passé conditionnel tense  is constructed using these présent conditionnel conjugations of être and avoir, followed by the participe.

Présent subjonctif conjugations: être, avoir, and aller

The passé subjonctif tense  is constructed using these présent subjonctif conjugations of être and avoir, followed by the participe.

Imparfait subjonctif conjugations: être, avoir, and aller

The plus-que-parfait subjonctif tense  is constructed using these imparfait subjonctif conjugations of être and avoir, followed by the participe.

Impératif conjugations: être, avoir, and aller

*Note that, to ease the pronunciation, this imperatif tu form changes spelling to vas  when it’s used in the common expression vas-y , meaning go ahead . Check out our dedicated post for a full explanation of allons-y and other ways to say “let’s go” in French .

The passé impératif tense  is constructed using these présent impératif conjugations of être and avoir, followed by the participe.

French verb conjugation: Compound tenses

We’re almost done with this detailed introduction to French conjugation! Conjugating the compound tenses is actually very straightforward since they’re all just combinations of what we’ve already seen.

Every single compound tense has two parts: a conjugated auxiliary verb  (either être or avoir), followed by the participle  of the verb we’re conjugating. You have this same construction in English compound tenses, with examples like “he has been,” “I had been,” or “you would have been.” “Been” is the participle here, while “to have” is the auxiliary verb.

Whereas to have  is the only auxiliary verb in English compound tenses, avoir  is one of two auxiliary verbs in French, albeit the most common. Être  is the French auxiliary verb used with reflexive verbs , and with most verbs of motion .

The participle , or participe  in French, is always the same regardless of the rest of the conjugation, as we saw early in the post when we introduced the other verb forms. However, when the compound conjugation uses être  as the auxiliary verb, the participle’s ending is modified to match the gender and number of the subject (by adding -e, -s, and -es for feminine, plural, and feminine plural). We’ll see this in the passé composé conjugation table below.

Compound tense conjugations

Rather than repeat the same format we used with the simple tenses, we can distill the compound tenses down to their component parts: the tense of the auxiliary verb + the participle .

To conjugate verbs in each compound tense, we just need to use the conjugations of the auxiliary verb in the corresponding tense, and then add the participle. Follow this chart to build conjugations for each tense. We provide a sample in the next section with the passé composé.

Passé composé conjugation

To demonstrate the formula for compound conjugations we laid out above, we’ll show the passé composé conjugations  for two of the verbs we’ve already seen: finir  and aller . Finir  takes avoir  as an auxiliary verb, while since aller  is a verb of motion its auxiliary verb is être . For reference, we also include their participles at the top of the table.

To form the passé composé conjugations , we use the présent indicatif conjugations of the auxiliary verb  and then add the participle :

Note that when using être as an auxiliary verb , the participle always ends with -s in the plural conjugations. When the subject is feminine, the participle ends in -e, or -es for the plural subjects.

Conjugations for the other seven compound tenses  follow the same construction that we’ve just shown here with the passé composé .

Conclusion: French verb conjugation

This has been a pretty in-depth introduction  to the fundamental methods of verb conjugation in French . We’ve taken quite a trip through all the relevant aspects of verbs and their tenses, hopefully providing you with a solid foundation for applying these French conjugation rules  as you progress in the language.

We started off with a basic explanation of conjugation  itself, referencing its nuances in both English and French. We also noted that we usually refer to French verb tenses by their French names in order to keep them disctinct from their counterparts in other languages. With these framework details out of the way, we dove straight into the different French verb forms!

Before getting into strict conjugations by verb tense, we introduced the various verb forms  that don’t change between subjects or tenses. The two verb forms of particular relevance to the rest of the lesson are the infinitive , from which we draw our stems, and the participle , which appears in the eight French compound tenses.

Then came the main body of our post on French conjugation, which started with an overview of the sixteen French verb tenses . We saw that half of these are simple tenses with distinct conjugations, while the other half are compound tenses whose construction is based on the simple tenses with the participle. We also learned that several tenses are rarely even used in spoken French, with a couple even relegated to historic literature.

With the list of French tenses out of the way, we finally got into our lesson on how to go about conjugating French verbs for each tense . We showed that it all comes down to obtaining the stem , and adding the right endings . We then provided conjugation tables  for all eight simple tenses, demonstrating the regularity of these rules with all three groups of regular French verbs .

While we didn’t go deep into all the nuances of irregular verb conjugations , we saw that they generally follow the same rules as the regular verbs we’d just seen. We chose the three most-important French verbs as our irregular verb examples, providing full conjugation tables  in the eight simple tenses for être , avoir , and aller .

Our final section was on compound tense conjugations . We saw that these are built entirely on material we’d seen earlier, namely the simple tense conjugations of the auxiliary verbs être and avoir , along with the participle  we saw early on. We demonstrated this construction with a full conjugation table in the passé composé, while providing a clear formula for building each of the other compound tenses.

Overall, this post went pretty in-depth into all the rules for conjugating verbs in French . We organized it so that you can scroll quickly to the specific information you’re looking for, so it can continue to serve as a reliable reference as you improve your French language skills. We recommend bookmarking this post  to come back to it in the future, and sharing it with other French learners who might appreciate it.

Thanks for learning the fundamentals of French verb conjugation  with us!

KEEP READING

Lingoda vs lingoculture: a review of french language classes online, the alouette song: meaning and lyrics in french and english, ordinal numbers in french: a simple guide, french accent marks: a quick guide to the five french diacritics.

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10 Common French phrases: How to structure a speech or talk

Whether you’re giving a presentation or simply introducing yourself to a group of people, knowing how to structure a speech or talk in French can be a valuable skill.

In this lesson, we’ll go over 10 common French phrases for structuring a speech or talk.

Bonjour à tous. (Hello, everyone.)

This phrase is used to begin a speech or talk, and to greet the audience.

Je vais parler de ___. (I’m going to talk about ___.)

This phrase is used to introduce the topic or theme of the speech or talk.

Tout d’abord, je vais ___ . (First, I’m going to ___ .)

This phrase is used to introduce the first point or topic of the speech or talk.

Ensuite, je vais ___ . (Next, I’m going to ___ .)

This phrase is used to introduce the second point or topic of the speech or talk.

Après cela, je vais ___ . (After that, I’m going to ___ .)

This phrase is used to introduce the third point or topic of the speech or talk.

Pour résumer, j’ai parlé de ___. (To summarize, I talked about ___.)

This phrase is used to summarize the main points or topics covered in the speech or talk.

En conclusion, ___. (In conclusion, ___ .)

This phrase is used to wrap up the speech or talk, and to give a final statement or message.

Merci de votre attention. (Thank you for your attention.)

This phrase is used to express gratitude to the audience for listening.

Avez-vous des questions ? (Do you have any questions?)

This phrase is used to invite the audience to ask questions or seek clarification.

Je suis à votre disposition pour répondre à vos questions. (I’m available to answer your questions.)

This phrase is used to indicate that the speaker is willing and available to answer any questions or concerns the audience may have.

Learning these common French phrases for structuring a speech or talk will help you to communicate more effectively in formal settings.

Additionally, it is helpful to learn basic French vocabulary and grammar rules to build your language skills. With practice and persistence, you’ll soon be able to deliver speeches and talks with ease in French.

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French Grammar: The Present Continuous – [ÊTRE EN TRAIN DE] + Infinitive

Posted by Barbara Kruger on Tuesday, December 2, 2014 · Leave a Comment  

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French Grammar: The Present Continuous – [ÊTRE EN TRAIN DE] + Infinitive la grammaire française: le présent continu – [être en train de] + l’infinitif

In English, we use the Present Progressive tense to talk about actions that are occurring at this moment in time.  The marker for this in English is a form of the verb “to be” + a verb ending in -ing . For example: I am talk ing , She is eati ng , They were study ing , etc.

French doesn’t have a Present Progressive tense.  Instead, French usually uses the simple Present Tense (e.g., je mange ) to convey both the simple Present Tense in English (“I eat”/ “I do eat”) and the Present Progressive (“I am eating”). However, in order to emphasize that something is in the process of happening in French, we can use the construction ÊTRE EN TRAIN DE + Infinitive .

French doesn’t have a Present Progressive tense.  Instead, French usually uses the simple Present Tense (e.g., je mange ) to convey both the simple Present Tense in English (“I eat”/ “I do eat”) and the Present Progressive (“I am eating”). However, in order to stress that something is in the process of happening in French, we can use the construction ÊTRE EN TRAIN DE + Infinitive .

To emphasize actions that are in the process of happening even as you speak, use the simple Present Tense form of ÊTRE + en train de + the Infinitive form of the verb (i.e., action) that is going on:

Je suis en train d’ étudier . I am (in the process of / in the middle of) studying (right now).

Il est en train de parler . He is (in the process of / in the middle of) speaking (right now).

To emphasize an action that was in the process of happening, use the Imperfect Tense form of ÊTRE + en train de + the Infinitive form of the verb (i.e., action) that was going on:

Ils étaient en train d ‘ aller à la bibliothèque. They (masculine) were (in the process of / in the middle of) going to the library (right then).

Nous étions en train de traverser la rue. We were (in the process of / in the middle of) crossing the street (right then).

To emphasize an action that will be in the process of taking place in the near future, use the simple Future Tense form of ÊTRE + en train de + the Infinitive form of the verb (i.e., the action) that will be going on:

Vous serez en train de dormir au moment où j’arriverai? Will you all be (in the process of / in the middle of) sleeping at the time I arrive?

Tu seras en train de préparer le repas quand il descendra du train. You will be (in the process of / in the middle of) preparing the meal when he gets off the train.

 Qu’est-ce que tu es en train de faire? What are you (in the process of / in the middle of) doing (right now)?

Je suis en train de faire la lessive. I am (in the process of / in the middle of) doing the laundry (right now).

Qu’est-ce que vous étiez en train de faire quand on a bombardé le World Trade Center? What were you all (in the process of / in the middle of) doing (right) when they bombed the World Trade Center?

Nous étions en train de marcher à l’école. We were (in the middle of / in the process of) walking to school.

Qu’est-ce qu’elle sera en train de faire pour la Saint-Sylvestre? What will she be (in the process of / in the middle of) doing on New Year’s Eve?

Elle sera en train d’organiser une soirée chez elle. She will be (in the process of / in the middle of) hosting a party at her home.

• The Verb ÊTRE – Verb Conjugation Chart
• YouTube/Learn French With Vincent: The present continuous
• YouTube/David I.: En Train De
• YouTube/Learn French with Pascal: Present Continuous in French
• YouTube/easytolearn french: Venir de + inf / aller + inf / Être en train de + inf
• YouTube / French Grammar: The Present Continuous in French

Category: French Grammar Lessons · Tags: Continu , Continuous , de , ÊTRE , française , french , grammaire , grammar , present , train

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La préposition (French prepositions)

What are the most common prepositions in french, easily mixed-up words, list of important french prepositions.

• Lingolia Plus French

What is a preposition?

Prepositions (les prépositions) are small words that link elements of a sentence together. They indicate the relationships between words.

In French, there are simple prepositions ( à, chez, etc. ) as well as longer prepositional phrases ( d’après, près de etc. ).

Unfortunately, prepositions often can’t be translated literally. The only solution is to look them up in a dictionary, read a lot in French, and learn important prepositional phrases by heart. Read on for tips, tricks and examples of how to use French prepositions correctly, then test yourself in the free exercises.

Simon a travaillé aujourd’hui de 8 heures à 16 heures. Après le travail, il est rentré à la maison.

Devant la porte, il a remarqué qu’il avait oublié ses clefs au travail. Pour pouvoir rentrer chez lui, il va donc chercher son double de clés caché sous le pot de fleur au-dessus de la porte à l’arrière de la maison.

Heureusement que les clés sont là! Simon peut rentrer à la maison!

The prepositions à , de and en

• In lists, à, de, and en are repeated before each item (not mentioned once and then left out, as in English). Examples: Elle a donné un mouchoir à Pierre et à Zoé. She gave a handkerchief to Pierre and (to) Zoé. Il faut de l’ eau, de la farine et du sel pour faire une pâte à pizza. You need water, flour and salt to make a pizza crust.
• The prepositions à and de are combined with the articles le and les to make one word.

The prepositions avant and devant

Avant and devant are often both translated into English as “before”. In French, however, these prepositions have two different meanings — avant is used when referring to time and devant when referring to space (similar to “in front of”).

When you’re writing, be careful that you don’t mix up these similar words:

• à (preposition) and a (3 rd person singular present tense of avoir ) Examples: Il a pris froid. He got a cold. Il est allé à Reims. He went to Reims.
• sur (preposition) and sûr ( adjective ) Examples: Il est monté sur la table pour réparer la lampe. He climbed on the table to repair the lamp. Il est sûr d’avoir réparé la lampe hier. He is sure that he repaired the lamp yesterday.

The following tables list the most important prepositions in French grammar.

Prepositions – Time

Although not strictly a preposition, the prepositional phrase il y a (= ago) is useful for locating past events in time.

Prepositions – Place (Position and Direction)

Other important prepositions.

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