The Present Indicative

The Present Indicative

The present tense, indicative mood describes an action or state of being that is occuring in the present. It can either describe something that is happening specifically at the time that the speaker is talking (i.e. I am going to school), or it can be a general statement about conditions in the present (i.e. I go to school or I do go to school). One thing that is important to understand when learning French is that the present tense in French can be translated three different ways in English. For example:

Je travaille		=I work
		=I do work
		=I am working

*Often in English, we place "do," "does," or "did" in front of a verb, for emphasis. In French, this never happens. Sometimes for emphasis you might put a stress pronoun right before the subject pronoun. For example, "Moi, je travaille tous les jours" instead of just "Je travaille tous les jours."

*Another important point is that in English, we have what are called "progressive" forms of a tense. This is where you have a subject plus the corresponding conjugated form of "to be", plus the "-ing" form of a verb. For example, "I am working" is in the present progressive. "I was working" is in the past progressive. In French this concept of a "progressive" form of a tense does not exist, and so to translate "I am working," we simply say "Je travaille." Examples:

Je travaille tous les jours.		I work every day.
Il cherche son livre.		He is looking for his book.**
Elle demande une question.		She asks a question.
Nous habitons � Paris.		We live in Paris.
Tu chantes bien.		You do sing well.
Je finis mes devoirs.		I am finishing my homework.
Nous choisissons partir.		We choose to leave.
Il ob�it � ses parents.		He does obey his parents.
Elle vend des chemises.		She does sell shirts.
J'attends Claire.		I am waiting for Claire.**
Entends-tu un bruit?		Do you hear a noise?
Nous lisons Le Petit Prince.		We are reading The Little Prince.
Ils prennent le train pour aller au travail.		They take the bus to go to work.
Je vais � l'�cole le lundi.		I do go to school every Monday.

**NB: It is not a mistake that the word "for" is in bold lettering: while the word "for" is not a verb but a preposition, the French verb chercher translates as "to look for, to search for," and similarly the French verb attendre can either mean "to wait" or "to wait for." In French there are more than a few verbs that, when translated into English, do or can translate as a verb plus a preposition.

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