Présent
What is happening now, habits, and general truths.
- je vais
- tu vas
- il / elle / on va
- nous allons
- vous allez
- ils / elles vont
« Il va au travail. »
to go
3rd group, irregular verb, auxiliary être, past participle allé.
Several stems
Compare je vais, nous allons, j’irai, que j’aille.
Auxiliary être
In compound tenses, the participle agrees with the subject: allé, allée, allés, allées.
Underlined: the stem is not the infinitive’s.
Enough to talk about the present, the past, and the future.
What is happening now, habits, and general truths.
« Il va au travail. »
The everyday past for a finished action.
« Hier, il est allé au travail. »
The spoken future for plans and near events.
« Demain, il va aller au travail. »
Past habits, descriptions, and ongoing background.
« Avant, il allait au travail. »
Something that has just happened: venir de plus the infinitive.
« Il vient d’aller au travail. »
What will happen later, including promises and predictions.
« Demain, il ira au travail. »
Polite requests, wishes, and hypotheses: “would …”.
« Il irait au travail si nécessaire. »
Orders, advice, and instructions. The subject in parentheses is not spoken.
A past action completed before another past action.
An action finished before a future moment: “will have …”.
Regrets and hypotheses that never happened: “would have …”.
After necessity, wishes, emotion, doubt, or conjunctions like bien que.
Subjunctive for an action already completed.
The written narrative past: novels, history, and fairy tales.
A literary action completed immediately before another past action.
Literary subjunctive used inside past-tense narration.
Literary subjunctive for an action completed before another.
Literary variant of the past conditional, matching the pluperfect subjunctive.