Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
French tenses - Coggle Diagram
French tenses
Imperfect Tense
- The imperfect tense is used to describe what used to happen or what was happening when describing a past action.
It is also used to say I was, I had, It was, there was and there were.
- To form the Imperfect tense you take the nous form of any verb in the present tense.
Then drop off the 'ons' of the verb and add the following endings:
Je - add AIS
Tu - add AIS
Il/elle/on - add AIT
nous - add IONS
vous - add IEZ
Ils/elles - add AIENT
The good thing is these rules apply no matter what verb we started with - whether it is 'er', 'ir', 're' it is all the same
- There is one irregular imperfect verb, 'être' (which is 'to be'). All you have to do it drop of the 're' and then add the endings used previously to form the imperfect tense:
j'étais
tu étais
il/elle/on était
nous étions
vous étiez
ils/elles étaient
- Few more notes on the Imperfect tense:
For the nous and vous form of the verb étudier,
nous étudiions
vous etudiiez
you will have two 'i's next to each other but that is normal just pronounce it the same
For the verb manger we have to add a 'e' to some of the forms:
je mangeais
tu mangeais
il/elle/on mangeait
ils/elles mangeaient
you have to add that 'e' to those forms to keep the 'g' soft, the nous and vous form do not need the extra 'e'
It is the same with the verb placer, you change the 'c' to 'ç' on all the forms except nous and vous to make the 'c' in the verb placer still sound soft
Conditional Tense
- In English, we use he conditional tense when we say 'would' it's exactly the same in French but the way we built this tense it quite different.
It is important to know what verb to conjugate when forming the conditional tense, it can be tricky because there is no word for 'would' in French, meaning you have to conjugate the verb which you 'would' be doing.
- For example 'would play' is the following in the conditional tense:
Je - jouerais
Tu - jouerais
Il/elle/on - jouerait
Nous - jouerions
Vous - joueriez
Ils/elles - joueraient
Some more examples are:
Je voudrais - i would like
Il jouerait - he would play
Nous resterions - we would stay
J'achèterais - i would buy
Remember that 'would' does not exist in French so what would be 3 words in English is only 2 in French
- These are the ending that will always be used to form the conditional tense:
Je - ais
Tu - ais
Il/elle/on - ait
Nous - ions
Vous - iez
Ils/elles - aient
Firstly take the infinitive of the verb that you want to conjugate, remember for 're' verbs take off the 'e' before adding the endings.
Next add the correct ending to the infinitive.
- There are some irregular verbs, there are some example below:
aller → ir → j'irais - I would go
avoir → aur → j'aurais - I would have
être → ser → je serais - I would be
faire → fer → je ferais - I would do
pouvoir → pourr → je pourrais - I would be able to
devoir → devr → je devrais - I would have to
vouloir → voudr → je voudrais - I would like
savoir → saur → je saurais - I would know
venir → viendr → je viendrais - I would come
voir → verr → je verrais - I would see
Above is for 'je' for Tu, Il/elle/on, Nous, Vous and Ils/elles you just take off the 'ais' and add the appropriate endings
Simple Future Tense
- The simple future is one of the easiest conjugations to form.
Firstly you get the infinitive of the verb, then add the following endings to the verb:
ai
as
a
ons
ez
ont
For example the infinitive - 'to eat' - manger
Je - mangerai
Tu - mangeras
Il/elle/on - mangera
Nous - mangerons
Vous - mangerez
Ils/elles - mangeront
Example - we will eat later - nous mangerons plus tard, as we said earlier, the word 'will' is not a separate word when you translate 'we will eat' just translates to 'nous mangerons'
- There are some exceptions:
For 're' verbs you remove the 'e' from the end of the infinitive before adding the endings.
For example apprendre - to learn you drop the 'e' and will look like this:
Je apprendrai
Tu apprendras
Il/elle/on apprendra
Nous apprendrons
Vous apprendrez
Ils/elles apprendront
- In the simple future tense you use 'will' rather than 'going to'. For example you would say i will speak for the simple future tense rather than I am going to speak which is the near future tense.
A sentence that is 3 words long in English will only be 2 words in French, for example in English it is 'i will speak and in French it is 'je parlerai', there is no separate word for 'will when translating it into French.
- There are 12 irregular verbs for the you just need to remember for the simple future tense.
aller → ir → j'irai - I will go
avoir → aur → j'aurai - I will have
être → ser → je serai - I will be
faire → fer → je ferai - I will do
pouvoir → pourr → je pourrai - I will be able to
devoir → devr → je devrai - I will have to
savoir → saur → je saurai - I will know
venir → viendr → je viendrai - I will come
voir → verr → je verrai - I will see
vouloir → voudr → je voudrai - I will like/want
Above is for 'je' for Tu, Il/elle/on, Nous, Vous and Ils/elles you just take off the 'ai' and add the appropriate endings
Near Future Tense
- How to form it:
Je vais - I am going
Tu vas - you are going
Il/elle/on - he/she/we are going
Nous allons - we are going
Vous allez - you are going (plural/formal)
Ils/elles - they are going
We now have the 'going' part we need to add the 'to do' part.
- Now to complete forming the near future tense we use infinitives. Remember, infinitives are the unchanged, unconjugated for of the verb that you find in the dictionary. In English these are 'to play', 'to run', 'to eat' etc. In French, infinitives end in 'er', 're' and 'ir'.
For example:
manger - to eat
finir - to finish
prendre - to take
So now that we can say 'going' and to do something we can construct the future tense.
Example:
She is going to eat - elle va manger
- The near future tense describes actions which are about to happen, or will happen at a definite time in the future.
In English, we use it to say we are going to do something
The near future is all about what we are going to do so we will be using the conjugation of Aller (to go)