French Tenses: Conjugation Quick Cheat Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by miss_shayshay

en train de: in the process of doing. (present)
// je suis en train de préparer le dîner

Le futur proche, also known as le futur composé, is used to talk about actions in the near future. It corres­­ponds to the English structure going to + infini­­tive, and emphasises that there is already an intention behind the action.

To conjugate the futur proche, we use the present tense of the verb aller as an auxiliary verb, followed by the infinitive of the main verb.

je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont + infinitive

The future stem for -er and -ir verbs is the infini­­tive. For regular -re verbs, the stem is the infinitive minus the final e. In all cases, the future stem ends in -r: this sound charac­­te­rizes the future and the condit­­io­n­a­l.The French simple future tense is generally translated into English with the modal auxiliary 'will.'

We use the futur simple in the following cases:
to talk about future intentions
to make suppos­­itions or predic­­tions about the future
in condit­­ional sentences (if sentences)


infinitive + The endings for the simple future are: -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont

It’s considered a mood NOT a tense, which describes how an action takes place (rather than when).
Le condit­­ionnel is often translated with would or could in English.
In French, we use the condit­­ional in the following cases:
to express a wish, a possib­­ility, or a hypothesis in the present or the future (condi­­ti­onnel présent) or in the past (condi­­ti­onnel passé)
as a tense to talk about the future from a past point of view
in if-clauses (see the section on condit­­ional clauses
to make polite requests

The stem used to form the condit­­ional is the same as the stem of the future (usually the infini­­tive).
We form the condit­­ionnel présent by adding the imparfait endings to the stem of the futur simple form of the verb.

The condit­­ional endings are -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient (These are also the imperfect endings).

The passé composé is used to describe actions that occurred in the past. They may be single events or series.

Avoir+
For regular er/ir/­­re­-­v­erbs, the past participle is formed as follows:
If the infinitive ends in -er, the participle ends in é
If the infinitive ends in -ir, the participle ends in i
If the infinitive ends in -re, the participle ends in u

Etre+ (agree in number and gender)
Used with reflexive verbs + verbs of movement:
naître­­/m­o­urir, aller/­­venir, monter­­/d­e­s­ce­­ndre, arrive­­r/­p­a­rtir, entrer­­/s­o­rtir, appara­­ître, rester, retourner, tomber and their related forms such as: revenir, rentrer, remonter, redesc­­endre, repartir

L’impa­­rfait (the imperfect) is a French past tense. It describes states and actions that were ongoing or repeated in the past. Used to tell stories and report on past actions.

Take the present tense nous form of the verb (remove ons) + the imperfait endings:
-ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez and -aient

indicates that an action had taken place and had been completed before another past action took place. The plus‐q­­ue­‐­p­arfait is the compound form of the imperfect and is formed by using the imperfect of the approp­­riate helping verb ( avoir or être) + the past participle of the verb. Its English equivalent is “had” + past partic­­iple.

For verbs conjugated avoir (to have) in the passé composé, it’s formed by combining avoir in the imparfait with the past partic­­iple. For verbs formed with être in the passé composé, use the imparfait of être.

avoir
j'avais
tu avais
il avait
Nous avions
vouz aviez
il avaient

être
j'étais
tu étais
il était
nous étions
vous étiez
ils étaient

+ past participle

ing = ant