Learn how to conjugate common French verbs such as être, avoir, and aller. Plus learn how to use the French present tense and other useful tenses and moods.
The conditional is one of the most important French tenses and one you have probably already used without realizing. A common example of French phrase using the conditional is Je voudrais un croissant s’il vous plait, I would like a croissant please. Like “would” in English, the conditional has a few different tenses. Let’s take …
A reflexive verb is a verb that’s preceded by a reflexive pronoun. These verbs show that someone or something is doing something to/by themself. For instance, Je me réveille means “I wake up.” As you can see, in English we don’t usually use reflexive verbs, although you could say “I wake myself up” for clarification or …
Recevoir means “to receive” in French. But like many commonly used verbs, it has a few different shades of meaning. Let’s learn more about recevoir! Recevoir conjugation Recevoir is an irregular verb, which means you’ll have to memorize its conjugations. Because the “c” in recevoir must always sound like an “s”, you will need to add a cedilla …
“Pouvoir” is a powerful verb. Once you know it, you can easily ask people to do something, and express what you can do. Here is how to conjugate and use “pouvoir”. Conjugation of pouvoir (can) I voluntarily chose not to include tenses like “passé simple”, because unless you are interested in French literature, you won’t need …
“Please don’t use the passé simple tense in your essay.” This is the first sentence our professor told us, a group of French college students, as we were about to take an exam. “Most French college students don’t know how to use the passé simple properly”, he went on. My professor was right. Most French …
Are you one of those people whose house is clean but cluttered, rather than neat and tidy? If so, the French verb nettoyer is for you! Nettoyer means “to clean” but also has a few more subtle meanings. Let’s learn about this clean-cut verb whose meaning is surprisingly precise. Nettoyer conjugation Nettoyer is an irregular verb …