French verb tenses
Present Tense
The present tense is the simplest verb tense. We already discussed how it is used in the regular and irregular verb section.
Passé composé
To form the passé compose, you use the present tense of the auxiliary verb, usually avior (to have), and then you past participle of the main verb.
For –er verbs, you drop the –er and add é. We will use the verb parler (to speak), to demonstrate:
J’ai parlé
Tu as parlé
Il/elle a parlé
Nous avons parlé
Vous avez parlé
Ils/elles ont parlé
French: J’ai parlé à Luc.
English: I spoke to Luke.
Notice that we used avoir translated like this:
J’ai
Tu as
Il/elle a
Nous avons
Vous avez
Ils/elles ont
For –ir verbs, you use the avoir present tense and then the –ir verb, but drop the –r. For example, finir (to finish) would become fini, and for –re verbs, you drop the –re and add –u. For example, perder (to lose) becomes perdu.
French: Tu as perdu ton livre.English: You have lost your book.
Future Tense
The future tense isn’t very difficult because you add the same ending for all three types of verbs and you add them onto the infinitive. This means you don’t have to drop any of the endings. Here are the endings:
Je = ai
Tu - as
Il/elle = a
Nous = ons
Vous = ez
Ils/elles = ont
Here is an example using the verb parler (to speak) to demonstrate.
Je parleraiTu parlerasIl/elle pareleraNous parleronsVous parlerez
Ils/elles parleront