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 nous regardons
tu regardes vous regardez
il/elle/on regarde ils/elles regardent
Verbs ending in –re e.g. attendre: to wait
J’attends nous attendons
tu attends vous attendez
il/elle/on attend ils/elles attendent
Verbs ending in –ir e.g. finir: to finish
je finis nous finissons
tu finis vous finissez
il/elle/on finit 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 nous ions
tu ais vous iez
il/elle/on ait 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 ét-
e.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 We spent the holidays at a campsite
un camping en France. Mon père in France. My father had booked a
avait réservé un bon emplacement good pitch
Le jour de mon anniversiare j’ai reçu On my birthday I got the money
l’argent que mes parents m’avaient that my parents had promised me
promis
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 – I’m going to the cinema
Elle va avoir un bébé - she’s going to have a baby
aller
je vais nous allons
tu vas vous allez
il/elle/on va 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 nous -ons
tu -as vous -ez
il/elle/on -a 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 – I would give
Je finirais – I would finish
Je vendrais – I would sell
N.B leave off the final –e of the infinitive when using re verbs
Irregular verbs examples:
aller: J’irais – I would go
avoir:J’aurais – I would have
être: Je serais – I would be
faire:Je ferais – I would do / make
venir:Je viendrais – I would give
voir: Je verrais – I would see
vouloir: Je voudrais – I would like
Useful phrases to learn:
Je voudrais aller en France en été I would like to go to France in the summer
Si j’avais de l’argent, j’irais en France If I had some money I would go to France
