Present Tense
- what is happening now / what usually happens
Most regular verbs follow these patterns:
Verbs ending in –er
e.g. regarder: to watch
je regarde
tu regardes
il/elle/on regarde
nous regardons
vous regardez
ils/elles regardent
Verbs ending in –re
e.g. attendre: to wait
J’attends
tu attends
il/elle/on attend
nous attendons
vous attendez
ils/elles attendent
Verbs ending in –ir
e.g. finir: to finish
je finis
tu finis
il/elle/on finit
nous finissons
vous finissez
ils/elles finissent
Irregular verbs follow their own patterns and must be learnt separately
Perfect Tense (1)
– something which happened in the past
The perfect tense is formed as follows:
An auxiliary verb (avoir or être)
+
The past participle of the main verb
Regular verbs form their past participles as follows:
Verbs ending in –er: take off –er and add é
e.g regardé – watched
Verbs ending in –re : take off –re and add u
e.g attendu – waited
Verbs ending in –ir : take off –ir
e.g. fini: finished
Irregular verbs need to be learnt separately
Perfect Tense (2)
The majority of verbs form their perfect tense with avoir:
J’ai
nous avons
tu as
vous avez
il/elle/on a
ils/elles ont
e.g J’ai visité le musée – I visited the museum
13 verbs form their perfect tense with être (usually involving movement /
change of state):
Je suis
nous sommes
tu es
vous êtes
il/elle/on est
ils/elles sont
e.g Je suis allé au cinéma – I went to the cinema
Reflexive verbs also use être
e.g Je me suis couché(e) – I went to bed
N.B. With être verbs in the perfet tense, add –e to the past participle for
feminine, add –s for plural and add –es for feminine plural
Imperfect Tense
The imperfect tense can be used to describe what things were like in the
past, what was happening at a given moment and what used to happen
e.g Je regardais – I was watching / I used to watch
To form the imperfect tense you take the ‘nous’ form of the present
tense, remove the ‘ons’ and add the endings.
Imperfect tense endings are as follows:
Je ais
tu ais
il/elle/on ait
nous ions
vous iez
ils/elles aient
e.g J’avais un chien – I used to have a dog
For être (to be) the imperfect endings are added onto the stem éte.g J’ étais triste – I was sad
C’était chouette – It was great
Pluperfect Tense
The pluperfect tense is used to report events that took place before another
event in the past / something that had happened. It is made up of 2 parts:
The imperfect tense of avoir or être
+
The past participle of the main verb
e.g. J’avais donné - I had given / J’ étais allé - I had gone
Useful phrases to learn:
J’avais déjà vu le film
I had already seen the film
Nous avons passé les vacances dans
un camping en France. Mon père
avait réservé un bon emplacement
We spent the holidays at a campsite
in France. My father had booked a
good pitch
Le jour de mon anniversiare j’ai reçu
l’argent que mes parents m’avaient
promis
On my birthday I got the money
that my parents had promised me
Near Future Tense
This is used to talk about what is going to happen in the future
e.g. je vais regarder
It is formed with:
The present tense of the verb aller
+
The infinitive of the main verb
e.g Je vais aller au cinéma
Elle va avoir un bébé
aller
je vais
tu vas
il/elle/on va
– I’m going to the cinema
- she’s going to have a baby
nous allons
vous allez
ils/elles vont
Future Tense
This is used to talk about what will happen in the future
e.g. je regarderai
It is formed by adding the future tense ending onto the
future stem
Future tense endings:
je
–ai
tu
-as
il/elle/on -a
nous
-ons
vous
-ez
ils/elles -ont
Future tense stems:
For regular -er and –ir verbs the stem is the same as the inifintive
For regular -re verbs the stem is formed by taking off the final –e
e.g tu visiteras – you will visit
For irregular verbs the stems need to be learnt separately
e.g. aller: ir- / être : ser / avoir: aur / faire: fer
e.g nous aurons – you will have
Conditional Tense
This is used when you want to say “would”.
The conditional tense is formed with the same endings as the imperfect tense,
however,the endings are added to the future stem.
e.g Je donnerais
Je finirais
Je vendrais
– I would give
– I would finish
– I would sell
N.B leave off the final –e of the infinitive when using re verbs
Irregular verbs examples:
aller:
J’irais
avoir: J’aurais
être: Je serais
faire: Je ferais
venir: Je viendrais
voir:
Je verrais
vouloir: Je voudrais
–I
–I
–I
–I
–I
–I
–I
would go
would have
would be
would do / make
would give
would see
would like
Useful phrases to learn:
I would like to go to France in the summer
Je voudrais aller en France en été
Si j’avais de l’argent, j’irais en France If I had some money I would go to France