La concordance des temps (literally "the agreement of tenses") is the system that keeps embedded clauses temporally consistent with their main clause. When you say Je dis qu'il est malade, the embedded est takes its time-anchor from the moment of speaking. When you say J'ai dit qu'il était malade, that anchor is now in the past, and the embedded verb shifts accordingly. This page lays out the system completely — both the strict classical rule and the relaxed modern usage — and explains where the subjunctive fits in.
If you have already read the Indirect Speech page, this page goes deeper into the underlying logic and into cases where indirect speech is not the trigger — for example, embedded clauses after verbs of opinion, perception, or fear.
What "concordance" actually means
Every embedded clause needs a time-anchor. When the main clause is in the present, that anchor is now, and the embedded clause uses whatever tense expresses its meaning relative to now: present for simultaneous, passé composé for anterior, futur for posterior.
Je crois qu'il dort en ce moment.
I think he's asleep right now.
Je crois qu'il a dormi cette nuit.
I think he slept last night.
Je crois qu'il dormira mieux demain.
I think he'll sleep better tomorrow.
When the main clause shifts to the past — je croyais, j'ai cru, j'avais cru — the anchor moves with it. Now in the embedded clause becomes the moment of the past believing, not the present. To preserve those three time relationships (simultaneous, anterior, posterior) relative to a past anchor, French uses three different embedded tenses:
| Time relation | Present matrix | Past matrix |
|---|---|---|
| Simultaneous | Présent (qu'il dort) | Imparfait (qu'il dormait) |
| Anterior | Passé composé (qu'il a dormi) | Plus-que-parfait (qu'il avait dormi) |
| Posterior | Futur (qu'il dormira) | Conditionnel (qu'il dormirait) |
The pattern is symmetrical: each present-matrix tense pairs with a past-matrix counterpart that is one step further back. Notice that the past-matrix column is identical to what you would use to talk about a past situation in the imparfait/plus-que-parfait/conditionnel system — that is not a coincidence. Past narration and past-anchored embedded clauses use the same toolkit.
Je croyais qu'il dormait à ce moment-là.
I thought he was sleeping at that moment.
Je croyais qu'il avait dormi la nuit précédente.
I thought he had slept the previous night.
Je croyais qu'il dormirait mieux le lendemain.
I thought he would sleep better the next day.
The three core shifts
Présent → imparfait (simultaneous in the past)
The present always shifts to the imparfait when the matrix verb is past. This is the most frequent shift and the easiest to remember.
Marie pensait que sa mère préparait le dîner.
Marie thought her mother was preparing dinner.
J'ignorais que tu habitais si loin du centre.
I didn't know you lived so far from the center.
Le journaliste a écrit que la situation s'aggravait de jour en jour.
The journalist wrote that the situation was worsening day by day.
Passé composé → plus-que-parfait (anterior in the past)
When the embedded action happened before the past moment of believing/saying/realizing, you need a tense that signals "past of the past." That is the plus-que-parfait.
Quand je suis arrivé, j'ai vu que les invités étaient déjà partis.
When I arrived, I saw that the guests had already left.
L'enquêteur a soupçonné qu'on avait effacé les enregistrements.
The investigator suspected that the recordings had been erased.
On nous a appris que l'avion avait atterri à dix heures.
We were told that the plane had landed at ten.
Futur → conditionnel (posterior in the past)
A future event seen from a past moment becomes the conditionnel présent. This is where the conditionnel earns its name future-in-the-past. It maps cleanly onto English would.
Le médecin a annoncé que le patient se rétablirait dans quelques jours.
The doctor announced that the patient would recover in a few days.
Tout le monde savait qu'elle finirait par démissionner.
Everyone knew she would end up resigning.
On nous avait promis que les billets arriveraient avant le concert.
We had been promised the tickets would arrive before the concert.
For a future-perfect-in-the-past — an action expected to be completed before another past event — use the conditionnel passé:
Il était sûr qu'il aurait fini son rapport avant la réunion.
He was sure he would have finished his report before the meeting.
What does NOT shift
Some embedded tenses do not change. The imparfait, the plus-que-parfait, and the conditionnel are already past-anchored, so they stay as they are.
Elle m'a dit qu'elle vivait en Suisse depuis cinq ans.
She told me she had been living in Switzerland for five years (still ongoing at the moment she spoke).
Il m'a confié qu'il aurait préféré une autre solution.
He confided in me that he would have preferred a different solution.
The conditionnel passé in the second example expresses what the speaker would have preferred — a hypothetical past at the moment of confiding, which stays exactly that when reported.
The subjunctive: modern French simplifies
Classical French had a four-way subjunctive paradigm: présent, passé, imparfait, plus-que-parfait. Sequence-of-tenses with the subjunctive used to mirror the indicative system: present matrix → subjonctif présent, past matrix → subjonctif imparfait. You will encounter this in literature:
(Littéraire) Je voulais qu'il vînt me voir.
(Literary) I wanted him to come see me.
(Littéraire) J'aurais voulu qu'il fût là.
(Literary) I would have wanted him to be there.
Modern spoken and written French has abandoned this. The subjonctif imparfait and plus-que-parfait survive only in literature, formal writing, and a few set phrases. In everyday French, the subjonctif présent does duty for both present and past matrix verbs:
Il faut que tu viennes.
You need to come.
Il fallait que tu viennes.
You needed to come.
Il faudrait que tu viennes.
You should come.
J'ai voulu qu'il parte avant minuit.
I wanted him to leave before midnight.
For anteriority within the subjunctive, modern French uses the subjonctif passé (formed with the subjunctive of avoir/être + past participle):
Je suis content qu'il soit venu hier.
I'm glad he came yesterday.
C'est dommage que tu n'aies pas pu nous rejoindre.
It's too bad you couldn't join us.
Il a fallu que nous ayons fini avant huit heures.
We had to be finished before eight o'clock.
So the working rule for modern French is: only two subjunctive tenses are productive — présent (simultaneous or posterior) and passé (anterior). Concordance with the subjunctive collapses to a simple choice between these two.
The relaxed rule: when shifts can be skipped
Modern French allows a deliberate exception to the strict concordance: when the embedded fact is still true at the moment of speaking, you can skip the shift and use the present in the embedded clause even after a past matrix.
(Strict) Léa m'a dit hier qu'elle était enceinte.
(Strict) Léa told me yesterday that she was pregnant.
(Relaxed) Léa m'a dit hier qu'elle est enceinte.
(Relaxed, equally acceptable) Léa told me yesterday that she is pregnant.
Both versions are correct. The relaxed version subtly emphasizes that the situation is still ongoing now; the strict version puts you firmly inside Léa's past moment of speaking. The choice is stylistic.
This relaxation is most natural with permanent or persistent facts:
Le prof nous a expliqué que la Terre tourne autour du Soleil.
The teacher explained to us that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Mon grand-père m'a souvent répété que la patience est une vertu.
My grandfather often repeated to me that patience is a virtue.
A general truth (the Earth revolves, patience is a virtue) does not need to be re-tensed into the past — it is timelessly true. Forcing the imparfait here (qu'elle tournait) would be technically grammatical but oddly suggest the fact was only true then.
French versus English
If your linguistic instincts come from English, you have an enormous head start. English applies essentially the same sequence-of-tenses transformations:
| French | English |
|---|---|
| Il a dit qu'il était malade | He said he was sick |
| Il a dit qu'il avait mangé | He said he had eaten |
| Il a dit qu'il viendrait | He said he would come |
| Il a dit qu'il aurait fini | He said he would have finished |
This parallelism is unusual among Romance languages — Spanish and Italian apply concordance more rigidly. The differences are:
- The relaxed exception is broader in French. English is stricter about applying the backshift, especially in formal writing.
- The conditionnel is a single inflected form in French (viendrait), while English uses the modal would + infinitive (two words).
- Subjunctive concordance does not exist in modern English at all (English subjunctive is moribund), so French requires you to learn the subjonctif passé as a new resource.
When concordance applies — and when it doesn't
Concordance kicks in whenever the embedded clause depends on a past matrix verb of saying, thinking, knowing, hoping, fearing, or perceiving. Typical triggers:
- Verbs of speech: dire, affirmer, déclarer, répondre, expliquer, ajouter, prétendre, jurer, promettre
- Verbs of thought: penser, croire, supposer, imaginer, savoir, ignorer, se rappeler, oublier
- Verbs of perception: voir, entendre, remarquer, constater, sentir, s'apercevoir
- Verbs of opinion under a past form: trouver, juger, considérer
It does not apply when the embedded clause is independently anchored — for example, when introduced by a temporal conjunction that has its own logic (pendant que, lorsque, après que). Those clauses choose their tense based on their own time relationship, not concordance.
Pendant qu'il dormait, je suis sortie faire les courses.
While he was sleeping, I went out to do the shopping.
Here dormait is imparfait because it describes an ongoing past situation — not because of any matrix verb.
Common Mistakes
❌ Il a dit qu'il vient nous voir demain.
Incorrect under strict concordance — present needs to shift to imparfait under a past matrix, and demain to le lendemain.
✅ Il a dit qu'il viendrait nous voir le lendemain.
He said he would come see us the next day.
❌ Je pensais qu'il a déjà mangé.
Incorrect — anterior to a past matrix needs plus-que-parfait, not passé composé.
✅ Je pensais qu'il avait déjà mangé.
I thought he had already eaten.
❌ Elle savait qu'il viendra.
Incorrect — futur cannot follow a past matrix; use conditionnel for future-in-past.
✅ Elle savait qu'il viendrait.
She knew he would come.
❌ Je voulais qu'il vînt.
Grammatically correct but stylistically wrong — the subjonctif imparfait is literary; modern French uses subjonctif présent.
✅ Je voulais qu'il vienne.
I wanted him to come.
❌ Il m'a dit qu'il était fatigué hier.
Inconsistent — if you keep hier, you are mixing the speaker's now with your now. Use la veille.
✅ Il m'a dit qu'il était fatigué la veille.
He told me he had been tired the day before.
Key takeaways
- Under a past matrix, three core shifts apply: présent → imparfait, passé composé → plus-que-parfait, futur → conditionnel.
- The conditionnel is future-in-the-past, parallel to English would.
- Modern French simplifies subjunctive concordance to two tenses: subjonctif présent (simultaneous/posterior) and subjonctif passé (anterior). The literary imparfait du subjonctif is for recognition only.
- The strict shift can be relaxed when the embedded fact is still true; both versions are acceptable.
- French and English apply concordance very similarly — your English intuitions will guide you most of the time.
Now practice French
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Start learning French→Related Topics
- Le Discours IndirectB1 — Reporting what someone said: tense shifts, time markers, and how to embed questions and commands in French indirect speech.
- Les Trois Types de Si: drillingB1 — The full architecture of French conditional sentences: real, hypothetical, and counterfactual — with the strict tense pairings that make them work.
- Sequence of Tenses: Concordance des TempsB1 — When the main clause is in the past, French shifts the subordinate clause's tense to encode the right temporal relationship — imparfait for same-time, plus-que-parfait for anterior, conditionnel for posterior. Indirect speech and reported thought live by these rules.
- Conditionnel for the Future-in-the-Past (Reported Speech)B1 — When you report past speech that pointed to the future, French shifts the futur to the conditionnel — exactly the way English shifts will to would. Master the rule, the time-reference shifts, and the journalistic patterns where this construction is everywhere.
- Le Subjonctif: Overview of the French SubjunctiveB1 — The French subjunctive is alive and well — used in casual conversation, not just literary prose. The mood marks uncertainty, emotion, necessity, and desire, and learners need it from B1 onward to sound like an adult speaker.