Formation of the Tenses for Regular Verbs
Simple Tenses
Present Tense, Indicative Mood
-ER Verbs: Drop the -er from the infinitive and then add e, es, e, ons, ez, ent.
-IR Verbs: Drop the -ir from the infinitive and then add is, is, it, issons, issez, issent.
-RE Verbs: Drop the -re from the infinitive and then add s, s, -, ons, ez, ent.
Imperfect Tense, Indicative Mood
For all three classes of regular verbs, drop the -ons from the first person plural (or "nous" of the present indicative, and add the following endings: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient.
*In fact, this is how the imperfect is formed for all French verbs except for �tre (to be), which is formed by using the stem �t and then adding the imperfect endings.
Pass� Simple
-ER Verbs: Drop the -er from the infinitive and add ai, as, a, �mes, �tes, �rent.
-IR & RE Verbs: Drop the infinitive endings and add is, is, it, �mes, �tes, irent.
Future
For ER and IR verbs, the future stem is the infinitive. For RE verbs, the future stem is formed by taking the infinitive and dropping the final "e". To the stem the following endings are added: -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont.
Conditional
The stem is the same as the future stem (this is true for irregular verbs as well, some of which have irregular stems in the future; all French verbs use the same stem in the conditional as they do in the future). To this stem add the imperfect endings, which are, again: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient.
Present Subjunctive
For ER, IR, and RE verbs, drop the "ant" from the present participle and add e, es, e, ions, iez, ent.
Imperfect Subjunctive
ER Verbs: Drop the ending from the pass� simple and add asse, asses, �t, assions, assiez, assent.
IR & RE Verbs: Drop the ending from the pass� simple and add isse, isses, �t, issions, issiez, issent.
Compound Tenses
Each compound tense is formed by conjugating the auxiliary verb in the corresponding simple tense and then adding the past participle (of the verb you are conjugating). The chart below shows the simple tense that corresponds to each compound tense:
Simple Tense
Compound Tense
Present Indicative Pass� Compos�
Imperfect Indicative Pluperfect Indicative
Pass� Simple Past Anterior
Future Future Perfect
Conditional Past Conditional
Present Subjunctive Past Subjunctive
Imperfect Subjunctive Pluperfect Subjunctive
Example:
I ate.
manger: to eat;
J'ai mang�.
In this example, I translate the sentence into French using the pass� compos�. So, first I take the present form of the helping verb. The helping verb is avoir, and the present form of avoir in the first person singular is ai. Then I simply add the past participle, mang�.
The Imperative
The imperative is not a tense; it is a mood. It only has forms for the second person singular, the first person plural, and the second person plural. The imperative forms for regular verbs are the same as the present indicative forms, except for the second person singular of ER verbs, which is formed by taking the second person singular of the present indicative and dropping the final "s".
Participles
The Present Participle
For all three classes of verbs: Drop the ons from the "nous" form of the present indicative, and add ant.
*This is how the present participle is formed for almost all French verbs; common exceptions are �tre (to be), avoir (to have), and savoir (to know [facts or things]), whose present participles are �tant, ayant, and sachant, respectively.
The Past Participle
-ER Verbs: Drop er from the infinitive and add �.
-IR Verbs: Drop ir from the infinitive and add i.
-RE Verbs: Drop re from the infinitive and add u.
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