The Main French Tenses You Need To Master

There are a large number of tenses in French and they can seem intimidating as a beginner. We all know tenses are annoying, but you need them.

Luckily in French you do not need to know them all. Well, I’m sure it would be ideal to know them all, but you are going to get pretty much 90% of the language covered if you can learn the tenses I will be talking about below.

If you can master these, you shouldn’t have a problem talking with anyone, about anything.

(If you are wanting to learn French you can check out my unofficial French Course and get a grasp of the basic structure of the language)

How Tenses Work In English

I know the first thing you think of when it comes to French tenses is “why is there so many? It’s so complicated” which is true…. but just take a second to think what is going on in English.  

You might be thinking we only have the past, present and future tenses, which is of course true, but just think about how many ways you can talk about things in the past – I walked, I went for a walk, I was walking …. There is 3 ways without evening thinking too hard.

Think about how many ways can about talk about the future – I will walk, I will be walking, I will have walked …again another 3 that easily come to mind with no effort

These examples are actually all different tenses, so I think it’s safe to say there are a lot of tenses in English too, we just don’t realise it.  We just don’t know that we are using the future continuous or the future perfect.

And before you start crying about the irregular verbs in French making it harder, just remember eat is not eated, it’s ate… so we have equally as many irregulars that we can easily handle without even noticing.

If you can do all this in English, you can do all this in French. It just takes time, but you can master these.

Verbs and Tenses

Tenses are formed through verbs. Verbs are just words that describe an action, and then how you use these verbs, lets you know when this action happened.

In the examples above the verb is “to walk” and you can see it used slightly differently depending on the tense – walk, walked, walking etc.

In French it is pretty much the same. You take a verb in its pure form (the infinitive) and you adjust it according to how you want to use it.

In English we might put a –ed or –ing at the end of the verb for example to change its tense, and French works in a similar and has its own rules for each tense.

(You read more about how verbs work in – An Introduction To French Verbs For Beginners)

The French Present Tense

This is pretty much the main tense you will need in French. If you can master this, you can really do a lot.

This is of course how you talk about the here and now which is going to get you by in most situations.

This is also the tense that is taught to you first and it is really easy to use.

(You can read a more in depth guide to The French Present Tense For Beginners)

The French Past Tense

The past tense is being able to talk about things that have already happened. Once you have conversations with people you will really start to notice how important this tense is.

You can’t tell much of a story if you can’t talk in the past tense. In French the two main past tenses you really want to get a grip with are the Passé Composé and the L’imparfait. There is also Le Passé Récent, which can be helpful for a beginner.

It can be a little confusing at first knowing when and how to use the Passé Composé and the L’imparfait. You might often see them both in the same sentence and be unsure why one was used and not the other.

As you listen and read more, you will start to get a better understanding it. Just give it time; it will start to make more sense.

Passé Composé

The passé composé is the most used French past tense and is used when something is complete.

It is easy to form and you will need to use an auxiliary verb to help you. Most times this will be Avoir (to have).

This makes the passé compose pretty easy to understand. You are basically saying “I have walked” or whatever verb you are using.

If you think about how many time you might say “I have…done something” you will understand why this is such a widely used tense and why it is so important.

Once you unlock this conversation potential is going to increase massively.  

(You can read a more in depth guide to The Passé Composé – French Past Tense For Beginners)

L’imperfait

This is the other main past tense in French and is used when you are talking about an ongoing action in the past.

That can sound a little confusing, but basically if you want to say “I was/would/used to” about anything, it will be the l’imparfiat that you use.

(You can read a more in depth guide to l’imparfait – French Past Tense For Beginners)

Le Passé Récent

This is a very basic way to talk about something that has just happened very recently.

It is like saying “I just…”

It’s a very simple tense and great for beginners and it is very easy to master. You will be able to master this straight away and then you can be instantly talking about things in the past, even if it is only things that have happened very recently.

(You can read a more in depth guide to Le Passé Récent – French Past Tense For Beginners)

The French Future Tense

The future tense is when you talk about things in the future.

If you are having conversations about the future you are getting pretty advanced with your French skills.

The main tense you need to master is the Furtur Simple, but there is also the Future Proche which is a very helpful and simple tense.

Futur Simple

This is the main French future tense and is used when we want to talk about any action in the future.

It is the same as saying “I will…” so you can see why it will be useful to know.

It is important to master, as you will want to be able to talk about the future.

(You can read a more in depth guide to The French Simple Future Tense – Futur Simple)

Futur Porche

The Futur Porche is the Near Future and is very simple and easy to use. Even if you are very new to French you can quickly master this tense.

 It is like saying “I am going to…” and is easily formed by using the verb Aller (To Go) as a helping auxiliary.

It’s basically the future version of the Passé recent. You just use it when you are just about to do something in the future.

You can pretty much use this in most occasions, but if the action is quite far off, it is better to use the futur simple

Other Tenses In French

The tenses I have talked about so far are something you should be focusing on as an intermediate speaker. If you can master these you are going to get pretty far in daily life and there will be very little you can’t say.

However, these are not the only tenses you should aim to know. Once you are pretty confident you can move to the more complex tenses, although it is good to be aware of them now.

Conditional

This is used when you want to talk about something that might happen in the future. It is like saying “would”

You might have already come across it and not even realised you already know it. Words like je voudrais, je pourrais, je devrais, j’amerais are all in the conditional and are just seen as a little more polite.

If we look at Voulvoir, it means “to want”

When you order something you are going to say “je voudrais…” which is in the conditional tense and means “I would like”… but really it’s more “I would want” but that sounds strange in English.

Either way, saying “I would like/I would want” is much more polite than using vouloir in the present tense. This would be – “je veux” which is straight up saying “I want”.

Saying that to a waiter in a restaurant would be rude in English, let alone French.

The Subjunctive

The subjunctive is another tense that you should be aware of, but not really worry about until you can master the others.

This tense is often called a mood and can really confuse English speakers as we have nothing like this.

Basically it is used when you talking about your feelings or perceptions of things.

Everyone seems to get scared of this tense, but give it time and you will start to understand it and even start using it yourself. Focus on the others first and then you can work up to this.

Literature Tenses

There are also a few tenses in French that you will only see in literature, especially more classical work.

If you are reading a lot of older stuff you may stumble upon them. I wouldn’t worry about learning them, but you may bump into them, so it’s good to know they exist.

Conclusion

French tenses are hugely important and if you really want to make good progress with your French learning you will need to master them.

Just take your time and learn one at a time. They can be daunting at  first by you will quickly see them just follow the same patterns and when you see them a 1000 times they will just be like the tenses you subconsciously know in English.