Tenses, Moods, Clauses - Notes

Tenses:

Present tense - Le présent: Used to express actions happening now, habits, or general truths, formed by a subject pronouns and an infinitive verb

Present continuous tense - Le présent continu: Used to express actions happening RIGHT NOW, formed by a subject pronoun, être conjugated, en train de, and infinitive verb.

Simple past tense - La passé composé: Used for actions completed in the past, formed by a subject pronoun, an auxiliary verb avoir or être, and a verb in past participle.

Imperfect past tense - L’imparfait: Used for ongoing actions or habits in the past, and descriptions of the past. Formed by subject pronoun + verb conjugated after nous and removing the -ons ending, and adding endings ais, ais, ait, ions, iez, aient depending on subject pronoun.

Near future tense - Le futur proche: Used to express actions that will happen soon, equivalent to ‘i am going to’, formed by subject pronoun, aller verb conjugated, and an infinitive verb.

Simple future tense - Le futur simple: Used to express actions that will or could happen in the distant future, equivalent to ‘i will’, formed by subject pronoun + infinitive verb with added endings ai, as, a, ons, ez, ont depending on subject pronoun. For regular verbs ending in -re, only e drops, for verbs ending in -yer the y becomes an i.

Conditional tense - Le conditionnel: The conditionnel tense is used to express hypothetical or polite actions, equivalent to ‘I would, I could‘ in English, formed by the futur simple stem, but with l’imparfait endings (ais, ais, ait, ions, iez, aient).

Moods: are forms of verbs that express the speaker’s attitude, intention, or perspective about the action.

Indicative - Indicatif: The indicative mood is used to state, describe or talk about real things, such as what people are doing or going to do, the weather, plans. It can be used in the present tense, simple and imperfect past tenses, etc.

Subjunctive - Subjunctif: The subjunctive mood is used to express emotions, wishes, subjectivity, or uncertainty. It is introduced by conjunctions or expressions like que, pour que, and il faut que.

Conditional - Conditionnel: The conditional mood is used to express hypothetical situations, polite requests, or future actions in relation to the past, corresponding to “would” or “could” in English.

Imperative - Imperatif: The imperative mood is used to give commands, instructions, and make requests, only existing with the pronouns tu, nous, vous.

Clauses or Propositions: Clauses or propositions are sentences containing a subject and a verb, functioning as a unit within a sentence.

Independent Clause: An independent clause stands alone as a complete sentence as it expresses a standalone thought or statement.

Dependent Clause: A dependent clause needs an independent clause to make a sentence. Dependent clauses begin with conjunctions (connection words) or relative pronouns (that, when, where, which, who - dont, lequel, où, que, qui). Dependent clauses are categorized based on their role in a sentence.

Dependent Substantive Clause: Role - act like nouns, introduced by que (that) or si (if).

Dependent Relative Clause: Role - Describe or provide more information about a noun, introduced by qui (who/which), que (whom/that), dont (whose) and où (where/when).

Dependent Adverbial Clause: Role - Act like adverbs to explain reasoning behind a verb in the main clause, introduced by conjunctions quand (when), parce que (because), afin que (so that), si (if), or bien que (although).

Coordinated Clause: A coordinated clause is linked to another clause by coordinating conjunctions et (and), mais (but), ou (or), donc (therefore) or car (because).