French verbs

 

 French verbs and how to use them

Page Index	The nature of French verbs	Types of verb
	Tenses and moods	Active and passive

1. The nature of French verbs

French verbs are unlike English verbs, in that they depend heavily on the use of conjugated tenses.  In English, most verbal forms involve using at least two words (such as am eating, was going, have been broken, would go); in French, a large number of the most common verbal forms use just a single word, though some, like English, use two, or even three words.  Examples:

2. Types of verb in French

Regular and irregular French verbs

French verbs are generally classified either as regular verbs, or as irregular verbs. There are three main categories of French regular verbs,

• regular verbs with an infinitive ending in -er, such as manger,
• regular verbs with an infinitive in -ir, such as finir,
• regular verbs with an infinitive in -re, such as vendre.

Apart from these, there are dozens of irregular verbs, many of them being commonly used verbs, the most common and most irregular of them all being être and avoir – closely followed by aller and venir .

Transitive or intransitive?

As in other languages, French verbs  can either be transitive or intransitive.  Certain verbs in French can be either transitive or intransitive, according to the context in which they are used. Transitive verbs require an object (or complément d'objet direct - C.O.D. in French), and can be used in the passive voice as well as the active. Intransitive verbs do not take an object, and do not have passive forms. (See below: voices)

3. Tense, mood

French verb tenses are derived from the tenses of Latin.
Verbs can be conjugated in the indicative and subjunctive moods
The simple tenses - which are all in the active voice - are as follows. Sample verb, manger in the third person singular (for full tense conjugations, refer to pages for the tenses in question).

Tense	Indicative	Subjunctive
Présent	Il mange	il mange
Futur	II mangera	-
Prétérit	Il mangea	il mangeat
Imparfait	il mangeait	-
Conditionnel	il mangerait	-

Other tenses - the compound tenses - are formed with the help of auxiliaries. For most verbs the auxiliary is avoir, for a dozen or so verbs it is être.

Tense	Indicative	Subjunctive
Passé composé	Il a mangé	il ait mangé
Passé antérieur	il avait mangé (il eut mangé)	il eût mangé
Passé conditionnel	Il aurait mangé	-

Most tenses of transitive verbs exist also in the passive voice (see below).

For more details, see...

•  The present tense in French.
•  The future tense in French.
•  past tenses in French.
•  The subjunctive in French

Aspect in French verbs.

    In English, aspect is expressed almost exclusively through the use of auxiliaries:  compare I eat potatoes and I am eating potatoes, or I drove the car and I was driving the car.
    In French the present tense does not have any particular aspect. Je mange can mean either I eat or I am eating. In the past, the imperfect tense has a progressive aspect, so Je mangeais means I was eating while J'ai mangé and je mangeai both mean I ate - or I have eaten (confusing!).  
    More on this on the past tenses page.

Modal forms

Other verb forms are formed using what in English we consider to be modal verbs: the French equivalents to English modal verbs are pouvoir and devoir. See modal verbs in French.

4. Voices: active and passive

French transitive verbs can be conjugated in the active and the passive voices.
Active forms have been dealt with above.  
The passive tenses are formed with the help of the auxiliary être, followed by the past participle of the verb. This is the procedure for forming the passive of both simple tenses and compound tenses.

Passive forms of active simple tenses

Tense	Indicative	Subjunctive
Présent	Il est mangé	il soit mangé
Futur	II sera mangé	-
Prétérit	Il fut mangé	il fût mangé
Imparfait	il était mangé	-
Conditionnel	il serait mangé	-

Passive forms of active compound tenses

Tense	Indicative	Subjunctive
Passé composé	Il a été mangé	il ait été mangé
Passé antérieur	II avait été mangé	il eût été mangé
Passé conditionnel	Il aurait été mangé	.
Imparfait	il était mangé	.
Conditionnel	il serait mangé	.

For more detail see  French verbs in the passive

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