by Jessica 5 Comments
French verbs and their conjugation seem to be the most exasperating part of French grammar for students. There are quite a number of French tenses and moods (I will write about those in a future article) and it is very easy to feel overwhelmed. As a result, many students buy dictionaries specifically dedicated to French verbs. Honestly, if I were a French student, the mere sight of these dictionaries would discourage me! Do I have to learn all that??!
Good news : the answer is NO.
There is an easy way you can dramatically reduce the amount of memorisation (and headaches!) to learn the most commonly used French tenses! The following recipeshas helped many of my students.
I have created a downloadable PDF : “The Most Common French Tenses Made Easy”so you can easily print this out if you find it helps you too.
This downloadable PDFincludes:
- colour coding, very helpful for visual learners
- simple exercises & their answers.
Note: This article is addressed to students who already have notions of French tenses / conjugation. The recipes provided aim at making learning and memorizing easier, but they are not lessons in themselves.
French Tenses Made Easy in 7 Recipes:The secret!
The secret is to simply and only* learn the following :
- The present tense (which is actually called “indicatif présent”/”indicative present”, but is often referred to as “present” by default). There are ways to learn how to conjugate verbs in the present rather easily.
- The past participles (used to make the past tense, such as “fini”, “lu”, “connu”, pris”, etc)
- The irregular forms of future tense (“futur simple”), which you can (re)discover on that excellent website :
*Of course, French grammar wouldn’t be French grammar without its exceptions, for example “être” inthe imparfait (imperfect) tense. Nothing is perfect indeed !
For the following recipes, you will also need to use :
- the infinitive (“infinitif”). Refresher: in French, the infinitives are easily identifiable as they end in –ER (aller, parler…), -IR (finir, partir,…) or –RE (prendre, lire,…)
- the stem/root (“radical”) is the part of the verb that doesn’t change (for regular verbs) and that allows you to recognize the verb in spite of the alterations you make to it when conjugating it:
Ex1: I walk, he walks, we have been walking →these are different forms of the verb “to walk”
Ex2 : je regarde, tu regardes, nous regardons à «regarder» is a verb with one unique stem (regard-) in the present tense.
je prends, il prend, nous prenons, ils prennent à «prendre» has 3 different stems in the present tense: prend-, pren-, prenn-
- the ending (“terminaison”) is the part that you attach to the stem of the verb. With each person and each tense goes a specific ending, which you need to learn.
So now, let’s do a bit of verb cooking to bake fresh and healthy French tenses !
Recipe #1 : Passé composé
(“perfect”, eg : I did, I have done)
You’ll need :
“être”* or “avoir” in the present tense + the past participle of your verb
(*Generally use « avoir ». For a reminder of which verbs take “être”, refer here)
- regarder →j’ai regardé
- finir →j’ai fini
- aller →je suis allé
Recipe #2 : Imparfait
(“imperfect”, eg : I was doing / I used to do)
You’ll need :
The stem of the “nous” form in present tense (= remove the “ons” ending)
+ characteristic endings of the imperfect tense : -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient
- finir→nous finissons (present tense) →je finissais, tu finissais, il finissait, etc. (imperfect)
- apprendre→nous apprenons (present tense) →j’apprenais, tu apprenais, il apprenait, etc (imperfect)
Recipe #3: Passé récent
(“recent past”, eg. I just did, I’ve just done)
You’ll need:
“venir” in the present tense + de + infinitive
- finir →je viens de finir
- partir→vous venez de partir
Recipe #4: Futur proche
(“near future”, eg. I’m going to do)
You’ll need :
“aller” in the present tense + infinitive
- faire →je vais faire
- aller →vous allez aller
- commencer →ils vont commencer
Recipe #5: Futur simple
(“future simple”, eg. I will do)
You’ll need :
– For regular verbs : the infinitive (drop the final “e” for infinitives ending in –RE)
OR
– For irregular verbs: the irregular stem of these verbs(list here )
+ characteristic endings of the future tense
(they are the same forms as verb “avoir” in the present tense !) : -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont
(regular verbs)
- regarder →je regarderai
- finir →tu finiras
- comprendre →il comprendra
(irregular verbs)
- aller →j’irai
- être →tu seras
Recipe #6 : Conditionnel présent
(conditional present, eg. I would do)
You’ll need :
The stem of the future tense (infinitive or irregular form)
+ characteristic endings of the imperfect tense
- regarder →je regarderais
- être →nous serions
Recipe #7: Subjonctif présent
(“subjunctive present” – rare in English, that he do”)
You’ll need:
– For the “je”, “tu”, “il/elle/on”, “ils/elles” forms :
the stem of the “ils” form in present tense (remove the “-ent” ending)
+ endings of the subjunctive tense (same endings as –ER verbs in indicative present tense !):
-e (je), -es (tu), -e (il), -ent (ils)
&
– For the “nous” and “vous” forms :
the same form as the imparfait !
*There are a few irregular verbs in subjunctive tense, check them here
- finir→ ils finissent (indicative present) →que je finisse, que nous finissions (subjunctive present)
- boire→ils boivent (indicative present) →que je boive, que nous buvions (subjunctive present)
Sooo much easier, isn’t it ?! Admit this is way better than trying to learn 500 pages by heart… 😉
Don’t forget that you can easily print these French tenses recipes and test yourself with the PDF below.
If you’ve found this article helpful, please pass it on! Also if you like this article, you may also like French Your Way Podcast. Merci!
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