All 18 French Verb Tenses Explained in 12 Minutes! How Many Do You Know?

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Which French verb tense is the hardest? 😭

[@弯月]

i'd say passé composé for the avoir/être rule. the reflexive verb aspect, plus the dreaded irregulars :D :D

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

@@弯月 Agreed! The reflexive verbs took me such a long time to wrap my head around when I was learning French.

[@patata1812]

I'd say the subjonctif imparfait is the hardest in my opinion...

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

@@patata1812 I think the fact that it's not used very often doesn't help matters much 😂

[@TheJayWay101]

Passé composé

[@louella9]

it's a very good video, the only thing is the music was kind of distracting.

[@aneelacosta]

Nice video but the music was way too spooky

[@RouteDeTours]

@@aneelacosta Sadly, someone told KZbin posters that every video MUST have annoying music. That person has a lot to answer for because extremely few videos benefit from irritating its viewers.

[@user-zj8jn3hs6f]

Ikr? It’s the same five seconds on loop 😒😒😒

[@thameenmunira2066]

@@aneelacosta too spooky music

[@thameenmunira2066]

Very spooky sound

[@kkellerz]

love this video but why is the music so creepy ahhahaa

[@chairsunken731]

Everything in this video is creepy and scares me...

[@teresita.lozada]

IKR HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

[@hatpbj]

@@chairsunken731 yeah

[@Mat-xy7gb]

*Laughs in native French speaker that is watching this for some reason*

[@spudlord8841]

Your language is a legit bruh moment

[@Mat-xy7gb]

@@spudlord8841 merci

[@Coeurebene1]

pretty sure most native speakers don't master all these tenses though

[@victorVaareK2803]

@@Coeurebene1 as a french, i can confirm that the last tenses he presented like "imparfait du subjonctif" are never used. Absolutely useless to learn. "Le passé simple", as he said, is useful only if you want to read a story in french. We know how to use it, but we never use it to speak.

[@stephaniepierre11]

@@Mat-xy7gb t’as tellement de chance smh j’apprends la langue et je dirais pas que c’est facile- en tant que un locuteur anglais c’est parce que par rapport à l' anglais, l' anglais est plus décontracté (part of this was google translated so don’t bite my head off 😭)

[@louisevillela1920]

Everyone is talking about the background music, I honestly didn't even notice it, so concentrated I was on the explanation

[@sanskritiray1011]

and the fact that I'm watching this on Halloween makes it more distracting lol 😂🙂

[@Nwokedi]

I didnt even notice the music too. I was so concentrated in the busines of understanding the French verb complexities

[@NumericalCounts]

It’s easier to ignore the music when watching the video but not when you just listen to it. However it’s a great trick to add the unnecessary music so more people comment on the video which in turn helps more people find the video as KZbin loves comments.

[@michaeleaster1815]

fabulous video: thanks! the music is like the final round of a game show... it stresses me out, but it's a fitting backdrop for the subjunctive

[@clementchen9999]

DID YOU KNOW YOU JUST SAVED MY LIFE??!! living in Paris and talking with French people is so difficult.... thank you so much!!

[@fergalhughes165]

Ah well, that's Parisiens for you😊

[@Anu_sha23]

Finally a video that summarizes all verb tenses together in a way which is easier to understand. When I read the title I initially thought it would be a dry video explaining all verb tenses on a white board or in a powerpoint format but I'm glad you made this so interesting with great visuals! This really helped me to get a grasp of all the french tenses. Awesome video, subscribed to your channel!! 😊👍

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Woot woot! Glad you liked it :)

[@effatfarzana4750]

😊😊p0000

[@Jennifer.Greene]

Great content, but man the music is so distracting - I find testing out the music level by wearing headphones when editing very helpful to avoid this problem.

[@PhilosopherWR]

I'm glad someone else said it. I super appreciate the video but I couldn't finish watching it because the abrasive repeating sound triggered my anxiety.

[@mabelmarotta4569]

Agreed! Excellent explanations, but by the middle of the video I almost couldn’t hear the voice over the music which now sounded louder and too distracting

[@sakshipatel1267]

The finest video i have ever had regarding french tenses

[@junebug.connect]

Useful video - simple, clear, useful visuals. The music was too distracting though and it would've been good if you had shown congujation endings for -re and -ir verbs where they differed to -er and -re verbs.

[@LDN_MZK]

Man! This is a GREAT video! I totally forgot all the grammatical names of the tenses in French. This is a great for University/College studies. Keep this quality and in-depth video style.

[@cripheponine]

11:34 It's not "Il fait écrire Marie le livre." It is "Il fait écrire le livre à Marie." "Futur proche" isn't officially a tense. It's just a semi-tense. Also there's a second semi-tense : "passé proche". "Je viens de manger." ===> "I've just eaten."

[@ThierryLeguayCSJV]

I would say "Il fait écrire le livre par Marie" (by Marie) or "Il fait écrire Marie" (he makes Marie write) because "Il fait écrire le livre à Marie" could mean "he makes Marie's book being written (by someone else)". Also, "le livre s'écrit" would translate more closely to "the book is being written" than "the book is written" " The latter is simple present passive form which would be "le livre est écrit" in French. Finally, that example sounds strange to me as it really does sound like the book is writing itself. I would not normally use a pronominal form in this context.

[@cripheponine]

@@ThierryLeguayCSJV "Il fait écrire le livre à Marie" doesn't mean "he makes Marie's book being written (by someone else)". It's not correct French. It is "à", not "de".

[@ThierryLeguayCSJV]

​@@cripheponine I beg to differ. "À" can indeed be used to show "possession". Here is the explanation from Larousse: " "À" peut être utilisé avec ou sans verbe être, et suivi d'un nom ou d'un pronom personnel, pour marquer l'appartenance : Cette maison est à moi. (À moi, à lui, etc., peuvent s'employer pour insister sur la relation déjà exprimée par un possessif : Mon explication à moi est très simple.)" Hence one could say something like "Le livre à Marie est très bon" and that would be correct French. I'm not saying that's how I would say it nor that it's the best way to say, but that it could be interpreted that way. FYI: here are the links for all the possible uses of "à" in the Larousse dictionary: www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/%c3%a0/5 and in Le Robert dictionary: dictionnaire.lerobert.com/definition/a

[@stephaniepierre11]

Please- you’re gonna kill me if you keep up with more of these tenses 😭

[@cripheponine]

@@stephaniepierre11 we don't even have say anything about the "temps surcomposés" 😂😂

[@Jumpoable]

I wanted to watch this video to brush up my French grammar but I had to pause & watch it as 4 separate parts. Bien fait !

[@ho0ble305]

This genuinely is the single best video on KZbin

[@carlossalazar3271]

Thanks man! This is such an amazing content. Well-structured, clear and engaging!

[@vishaljawa]

Excellent video thanks for all the effort... wish I could listen to it without the background music, its distracting

[@katej3z715]

The best explanation I have ever seen. Sometimes teachers relentlessly inform students that something is very challenging and that they are likely to be unable to manage. So, as predicted, they fail. Your message is a warning for the feint hearted, followed by 'get ready, buckle up and start'. A little longer without the music would be good but you have provided resources. Wow.

[@shei8296]

i haven't spoken french in 3 years and decided to take intermediate french on a whim as one of my uni courses lmao this video is such a life-saver for refreshing my memory,, thank u!!

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Anytime! Good luck with your course 😎

[@LQQK-GR8]

Finally, an explanation of French verb tenses, voice, etc that makes sense! Thank you!!!

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Anytime, my friend! 🙂🙌

[@gracekelley5049]

Thanks!! I've started a French novel and realized I need to be able to recognize the tenses I have yet to learn in my classes, and this was the perfect video. Hope you're having a good day

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Happy to help! How exciting! What's your novel about?

[@gracekelley5049]

@@TheTravellingLinguist It’s called L’élégance du hérisson and it’s about a concierge who’s hidden intelligence is discovered my a mentally unstable but smart young girl. I’ve just started it so I’m not very far yet.

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

@@gracekelley5049 That's awesome! Sounds like quite the interesting read 😄

[@TarekAliFazle]

excellent video - a true crash course on french verbs; much appreciated

[@sitizenkanemusic]

Hey man I subbed to your channel! You have great potential. One recommendation- you might want to get a compressor (either emulation or physical hardware) for when your audio peaks. I recommend Waves plugins. I think Waves has a content creator bundle. The dynamic ranges varies when you listen with a smaller device, and a compressor will help with that. You can also trigger the compressor to turn on when you speak, which will allow the music to sound quieter (sidechaining), without automating the volume constantly, which is a big time saver. Also, getting a proper EQ will work wonders. Thanks for your content!

[@MrLDS]

Merci beaucoup pour faire ce vidéo. C'est très utile. Je cherchais pour un vidéo comme ça qui explique tout les tenses. Encore merci beaucoup :)

[@eelectriz3258]

thanks alot for doing this video it is very usefull I was looking for a video like this that explains all the tenses again thanks alot :)

[@sraqx723]

You could’ve also used J’étais en train de chercher un video comme ça 😉

[@MrLDS]

@@sraqx723 merci

[@abarette_]

"vidéo" is feminine so you'll want to say "cette vidéo" and "une vidéo". Similarily you'd rather say "Elle est très utile" than "C'est très utile" "tense" and "time" are both "temps" in French. "Encore merci beaucoup" is weird. Say "Encore une fois merci beaucoup (once again thanks a lot)" or "Merci encore" or "Merci beaucoup"

[@abarette_]

@@sraqx723 No. "Je cherchais" is 100% the better way here. Though "Je cherchais pour" means "I was looking to" and not "I was looking for", as such you'll, indeed, want to say "Je cherchais une vidéo comme ça" instead

[@BEN-hl6yt]

THANK YOU. Thank you man, seriously. You saved me loads of time.

[@deaconmacdonald2570]

you seriously explained all of these better than any of my French teachers of the past two years. great video

[@blessed-q2j]

Thank you! Never delete this video pls!

[@evilstreamer]

This video REALLYY helped me revise pretty easily, a short and simple 12 minute video, which can be easily paused to take notes. Overall everything was so well explained man! At 6:42 you tell us to sub, and have 22k subscribers, its sad to see that now you have only 16.9k!

[@LaMouleQuiCoule]

Fascinating to watch as a native speaker perspective. Nicely put together videos.

[@弯月]

i had to pause and have a bit of a meltdown there because WHY ARE THERE SO MANY (complex language aside, thank you for the video!! very underrated yet useful. i'll be crying while taking notes)

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Sending tissues your way! 🎁Hahah

[@abarette_]

why are there so few in English! è-é

[@flamephlegm]

This is super helpful, thank you!

[@paradoxelle481]

There's also passé proche, where do the same as futur proche but it's venir +de + infinitive instead of aller, for stuff that *just* happened very recently.

[@rickdyck3490]

Absolutely best guideline, game changer!

[@varduhikirakosyan9680]

Nice! But music is really distracting

[@palakvaghasia8887]

It is very helpful video. I have tef canada examination in few days and I found this video perfect. thank you

[@namenim_]

watching this as a refresher at 1am the night before my french college exam lmao very good explanation & visualization man 👍

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Merci ! 😁

[@MSB1501]

You were very effectively trying to convince your audience never to embark on the journey of learning French. A job well done

[@bonniethompson341]

How does this not have more views~!

[@福白汪]

Awesome video. This is super helpful, and looks fantastic! Great job man

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Thanks so much! :D

[@patrick.d840]

thank you so much for this- I couldn't have done the test without it

[@mrdablu501]

Je suis très heureux après avoir regardé votre vidéo, merci beaucoup 😘 pour votre aide🎉🎉

[@mattiesmusic]

Thx for this video!, I have exam tomorrow and this just helped me understand it all :)

[@wolfy9979]

Hello there.

[@pointthree3]

Incredibly helpful and extremely clear. Thank you.

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Thanks!!

[@byronbaronv]

Wow boy, this is by far one of the best designed and explain videos I’ve seen so far. I have already shared it with my French course classmates. Thank you! Merci! ¡Gracias! ❤

[@kshina3624]

man this rocks as an quick refresher course for me when i keep forgetting which tense is which QAQ.

[@Nwokedi]

What a great content; simple, direct, short, complete, and comprehensible. Thank you so much for educating us.

[@ApplePie-gd6bb]

Excellent summary for system thinkers like myself. Many thanks!

[@hardikkoriya8174]

Amazing !!! I have never seen such explanations on KZbin Thanks for your efforts

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Appreciate it! 🙌

[@jessicaflemister4825]

This is the most clear and concise video ever! I thought it was click bait like in 12 minutes there’s no way…wow. Well done!!! **also, I didn’t care or even notice the music! I was too busy pausing, reading, re-reading, and trying to figure ways to remember the different tenses! 🙄

[@StudyCom]

I really enjoyed your presentation and it included a lot of pretty high-level and refreshingly accurate explanations. I have to take exception though to your comment about learning Chinese. It’s true that the verb tenses don’t present much of a problem even though they do have a kind of present perfect. The problem with Chinese is elsewhere and indeed it is probably 100 times more difficult than learning a European language for English speakers. Trust me I’ve tried.

[@michaeleaster1815]

I'm sure the comment about learning Chinese was tongue-in-cheek/not serious.

[@QamarBajwa]

everytime i watch this it brings clarity to my thoughts as i am learning french by myself! any suggestion about book for best practice

[@lovewithnature1076]

बहुत ही fast था कुछ समझ आया कुछ नही हो सके तो इतना अच्छा वीडियो हिंदी+थोड़ा slow&without music तो और easy way में सीखा जा सकता था,The best video,All concept clear.👍💐👌👌👌

[@camillecampbell9054]

Perfect video, thank you!

[@RANVEER.4321]

Great video. I never had a change to talk French directly with someone. Even when I was in France I used to talk in English. This will give me some courge :)

[@jaredwilson2655]

great video!! I really just need to work on my subjunctive and expand my vocabulary

[@matemanvelishvili7549]

Oh thank you, thank you so much! This is what i was looking for all this time!

[@huangvivi7925]

Just found this channel and your explanations are incredible! Subscribed!

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Thanks Huang! 😄

[@maruk409]

thank you so much! it was so useful!!!

[@simplycinema4d975]

Very good video. I sometimes start explaining the subjunctive as a reported speech imperative

[@thetongueofangels1882]

Im so grateful for this video. I already speak Spanish so i have an idea how these things work so im really grateful for this❤❤

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Glad to hear it! :)

[@adityashethwala8936]

This was extremely helpful! Thank you so much.

[@amlafaizan4478]

Much needed...Thank you!

[@richardburt9812]

Great video. I would change the music, but it's not a big problem. Thanks for making the video and for posting it!

[@carlossalazar3271]

Such a great video! Thanks man! Clear, meaningful and engaging!

[@sitizenkanemusic]

I know Spanish and currently learning european portuguese. Other than a few grammatical exceptions, all which I have to work on is pronunciation and new vocabulary, since Spanish and Portuguese have great similarities. I know its a feat in itself, but understanding all the moods (especially the dreaded subjunctive) and the tenses really allowed me to have substantial progress with my portuguese. It's very difficult for an English speaker to wrap their heads around concepts such as the subjunctive, and past tense vs. Imperfect tense.

[@seraphinascensia]

Thanks, very informative

[@JulieLeChef]

Everything is explained very clearly. Merci!

[@MinuteMirror]

THIS is the verb video I've been looking for! ty!!

[@teresita.lozada]

OMG!!, this is very interesting video and I hope to learn all the tenses little by little. Thank you!!.

[@harveythrondsen9354]

I think everybody has to be thankful about the voices of French.Because in Azerbaijani there is Personless voice and Even though Azerbaijanis struggle to understand this voice.

[@rrdawi]

very nice video!

[@oshindsouza2906]

thank you so much.., it was easy to understand!

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Thanks Oshin! 😄

[@parinithaaradhya1540]

Wow this is way more informative than it looks

[@arminekhachatryan5285]

Omg thank you so mush that was so short and so understanding ♥️♥️♥️ thank you so much 🥰🥰🥰

[@adnansakib8188]

Very nice video

[@anaga6049]

This really is an amazing channel. Merci!

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

De rien! J'espère que la vidéo ne t'a pas fait peur des verbes en français. 😂

[@MrLDS]

@@TheTravellingLinguist 😆😆🤣🤣. Non non c'est très Utile

[@HRAZZI]

breathtaking content, invaluable

[@dianera2571]

That was AMAZING!!! Merci bcp!!! 🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@chcbc5064]

A channel that I can binge-watch! :D

[@siand5296]

This video is so great! Never usually leave comments but thank you so much for this:) Have you got any tips on how best to learn these tenses to command easily when using in spoken french?

[@jasonoliver6170]

great video - the music is even good. Though, I would reduce the volume a bit : ) Keep it up! Amazing

[@smashingdan3720]

Thanks mate appreciate it. Can tell you put a lot of time into the vid!

[@EllaHewitt]

Amazing!!! Finally understand it... Thankyou!

[@LisaSoulLevelHealing]

Thank you. I was making flash cards with different tenses from a dictionary, and wanted to know which ones I should focus on.

[@jiyahtheivendran7283]

Thank you so much 😊 Good explanation 👍

[@geetaliification]

The background music is épouvantable

[@ambierosie]

Thank u for that sentence. I've never been able to remember the meaning of épouvantable.

[@abarette_]

@@ambierosie "shockingly awful" would be how I'd translate it back lol

[@Torontogal777]

It's so overwhelming! Great video ( except that annoying repetitive music). Is it possible to list a subset of verbs to concentrate on learning to be able to have simple tourist-type conversations that are enough to get by while traveling in France?

[@abarette_]

Not really. "Il prend", "Il a pris", "Il prennait", "Il prendra", "Il va prendre", "Il vient de prendre", "Il est en train de prendre", "Il prendrait", "qu'il prenne": ALL of these are common in spoken speech. And now I notice I misread your comment and you asked for verbs to concentrate and not for tenses to concentrate. lol Most important *irregular* verbs are "Être (be)", "Avoir (have, get)", "Aller (go)", "Venir (come)", "Faire (do, make)", "Prendre (take)", "Pouvoir (can, being able to, [conditionnal] could)", "Devoir (must, having to, [conditionnal] should)", "Vouloir (want, [conditionnal] would)". Also, "There is" translates to "Il y a (litt. there has)", and the "Do" auxiliary, usually can translate to "Est-ce que (litt. is it that)" "Est-ce qu'il devrait prendre ça?" -> (Does he should take that) -> "Should he take that?" -> "Devrait-il prendre ça?" "Est-ce qu'il pourrait y avoir ça?" -> (Does he could there have that) -> "Could there be that?" -> "Pourrait-il y avoir ça?" "Est-ce qu'il voudrait être comme ça?" -> (Does he would be like that) -> "Would he want to be like that?" -> "Voudrait-il être comme ça?"

[@sallygreavesbrown9239]

Excellent explanation, great graphics, music a tad distracting!

[@josueetcom]

Thanks for the video! As an intermediate French speaker who hasn't formally studied tenses in years this helped clarify the differences. I know they're pretty similar to Spanish with a few exceptions but I had trouble pinpointing the tense names. P.S. At 8:25 it looks like you meant to write "I would have spoken" for "j'aurais parlé".

[@saaragenie8151]

This vedio is really helpful and well taught about the tenses clearly where even a srilankan like me can understand from the first watching😜 thankyou and keep going ♥️

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Appreciate it!! 💚

[@saaragenie8151]

@@TheTravellingLinguist thankyou 😜♥️

[@pratibhat777]

Great content, helped me revise tenses quickly. The only annoying this is the music that overtakes your voice for the most part when I want to listen to what are you saying. just subscribed and hope I will not find music in other videos.

[@oao89]

à 11:30 quand tu traduis « he makes marie write the book » the correct translation should be « il fait écrire à marie le livre » or « il fait écrire le livre à marie » without the à this sentence doesn’t make sense

[@supechube_k]

and this is why i stare at mandarin learners with envy, while we're dealing with this crap, they get to live in a tense-free paradise or should i say..... they dont have to get tense about tense ill go now

[@dumbgenious1960]

Is mandarin really hard to learn? I want to learn an Asian langauge but I’ve always been scared because of how they’re portrayed

[@supechube_k]

@@dumbgenious1960 i mean remembbering the characters is really hard but the tones are easy since there's only 4 of them

[@supechube_k]

@@dumbgenious1960 and no matter how hard the language is, if you have the motivation and put in the effort, then you can learn it

[@ThierryLeguayCSJV]

The three main elements that make a language difficult/easy to learn are: 1. How close (linguistically speaking ) is the target to your own language. It is easier for someone who knows Spanish to learn French than for someone who speaks Mandarin. You have no control over that one. 2. How much exposition you get to the target language. That's why immersion experiences work so much better than out-of-context language classes. 3. How motivated you are to learn the target language. Bottom line, there is no such thing as an easy language to learn... with the possible exception of Esperanto which was designed to be that way.

[@xavieldorta9183]

Dammmm girlll

[@trinhnguyenkn7624]

Vietnamese also has no verb tenses. We use words to indicate the time of the action. For example, "I go to school today", "I go to school yesterday" = "I went to school", "I go to school tomorrow" = "I will go to school".

[@fyraltari1889]

How do you do when you don't know the date. Like "he came here before", for example?

[@trinhnguyenkn7624]

@@fyraltari1889 Sorry for my super late reply, in that case, we also use a verb to indicate time. "He came here before" is literally translated as "He COMES here BEFORE (or ALREDY)" The word "Before" and "already" are time indicators.

[@random-content6969]

ICSE CLASS 10 2021 1.Present tense 2. Futur proche n simple 3. Passe compose n recent 4. Conditional

[@stuarttusspot4769]

"Il fait écrire Marie le livre." This sentence isn't grammatically correct. You can say: "Il fait écrire le livre à/par Marie." This, however, is grammatically correct: "Il lui fait écrire le livre". You did an excellent job explaining how tenses work, though. Hope this helps :)

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

Oups! C'était une faute d'orthographe. Je voulais utiliser un autre exemple, mais je l'ai changé au dernier moment. Évidemment, je ne l'ai pas complètement changé.😂 Merci de me la faire savoir. :-)

[@stuarttusspot4769]

@@TheTravellingLinguist Avec plaisir ! Ta vidéo mérite beaucoup plus de vues. Elle est vraiment bien foutue et super claire ;) T'as gagné un abonné !

[@TheTravellingLinguist]

@@stuarttusspot4769 Youpi! Merci beaucoup :)

[@miljana2204]

Est-il possible de dire: Il fait Marie écrire le livre?

[@stuarttusspot4769]

@@miljana2204 Non, ça ne serait pas correct non plus. Quand il y a un nom propre dans la phrase (par opposition à un pronom), il faut forcément ajouter "à" ou "par" pour que la phrase soit correcte grammaticalement dans ce contexte. :)

[@brucea9871]

You did a good job of explaining all the French tenses. I remember enough of my high school French that I had no trouble following the discussion. My only complaint is the background music. In any instructional video background music is a distraction. It was particularly so in this case since it was fairly loud in comparison to your voice. I had to concentrate quite intently to make out what you were saying over the background music. I suggest dropping the background music in future videos.

[@pennyK551]

This is so good and exactly what I need! Thank you. Any chance you could do a printable pdf of the PowerPoint pages? I'd happily pay for that!

[@anapaotipsdesign739]

Love this ❤ Thank you. 😅 moi aussi pense que la musique ces ne pas bonne. 😂 Mais Merci Beaucoupe

[@adityarawat8090]

Pls God GIVE ME A BRAIN BIG ENOUGH TO REMEMBER ALL OF THIS