French Verb Conjugator

How to conjugate a French verb

1. Type the verb in the infinitive in French verb (infinitive), for example prendre, se lever or s’asseoir. Accents are optional: ceder finds céder and etre finds être. While you type, matching verbs appear as buttons below the field.
2. Press Conjugate or the Enter key. You can also click one of the example verbs next to Try:.
3. Read the summary: Group, Conjugates like (the model verb that follows the same pattern), Auxiliary, Present participle and Past participle.
4. Below the summary, every mood is laid out as cards, one card per tense: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative, participle, infinitive and gerund.
5. Tick Pronominal form (se …), Negative form (ne … pas) or Feminine (elle, agreement) to see the verb in those forms. For verbs such as monter, sortir or passer, an Auxiliary menu lets you switch between être and avoir.
6. Copy all tenses copies the whole conjugation as plain text, for example to paste it into flashcards or a lesson.

What the tables contain

The tool conjugates every tense and non-finite form of French, 24 in all:

• Indicative: présent, passé composé, imparfait, plus-que-parfait, passé simple, passé antérieur, futur simple and futur antérieur.
• Subjunctive: présent, passé, imparfait and plus-que-parfait, each with que (qu’il before a vowel).
• Conditional: présent, passé and the literary “passé 2e forme” (j’eusse aimé).
• Imperative: présent and passé, for tu, nous and vous.
• Participle, infinitive and gerund: présent, passé and the compound forms (ayant fini, avoir fini, en ayant fini).

Compound tenses are built with the correct auxiliary. Most verbs use avoir. A small set of intransitive verbs of movement or change of state (aller, venir, naître, mourir, tomber, rester…) and every pronominal verb use être, and the past participle then agrees with the subject: elles sont allées, nous nous sommes assises. Pronominal verbs whose reflexive pronoun is an indirect object keep the participle invariable: ils se sont parlé.

Elision is applied everywhere it belongs: j’aime, je n’ai pas aimé, qu’il s’asseye. Verbs that start with an aspirated h are recognized, so the tool writes je hurle and je ne hais pas, but j’habite.

How the conjugator works

Instead of storing millions of ready-made forms, the tool applies the rules that grammar books teach. About 80 conjugation models cover the whole language: the regular 1st and 2nd groups, the spelling changes of the 1st group (placer, manger, appeler, jeter, acheter, céder, protéger, employer, payer) and the irregular verbs of the 3rd group (prendre, venir, craindre, connaître, recevoir…). An index of about 2,400 common verbs, compiled for this tool, tells which model each verb follows.

If you type a verb that is not in the index, it is conjugated from its ending (for example like aimer, finir or prendre) and a note asks you to check the result.

The 1990 spelling reform

The rectifications orthographiques of 1990 are optional, and both spellings are correct. When they apply, a note below the summary shows the reform spelling: je cèderai next to je céderai, il étiquète next to il étiquette, il connait without the circumflex, and assoir for asseoir. The tables themselves use the traditional spelling that most textbooks still print.