Reflexive Pronouns: me, te, se, nous, vous, se

A reflexive pronoun is the small word that turns laver (to wash) into se laver (to wash oneself). French has six of them — me, te, se, nous, vous, se — and they accompany the family of verbs called pronominal verbs (verbes pronominaux), which always carry a se- in their dictionary form: se lever, se réveiller, se souvenir, s'habiller, se dépêcher. The pronoun is not optional decoration. It is part of the verb's identity. Lever and se lever are different verbs with different meanings — lever quelque chose means to lift something, while se lever means to get up.

This page introduces the six forms, explains where they go in the sentence, and previews the two crucial consequences for grammar: pronominals always use être as their auxiliary in compound tenses, and the pronoun reorders in the imperative. Sub-pages cover the direct-vs-indirect distinction (which determines past-participle agreement) and the four flavors of pronominal use (reflexive, reciprocal, passive, idiomatic).

The six forms

Notice that me, te, nous, vous are also the direct- and indirect-object pronouns from the regular pronoun system — that is not a coincidence. In the 1st and 2nd persons, French doesn't bother distinguishing reflexive from non-reflexive ("I see myself" and "you see me" both use me). The genuinely reflexive-only form is se (for the 3rd person, both singular and plural). Se is morphologically frozen: there's no *ses in the plural, no gender variation. It is the only invariable element of the system.

Elision: m' / t' / s' before a vowel

Me, te, se contract obligatorily to m', t', s' before a verb beginning with a vowel or silent h. Nous and vous never elide.

The elision is not a stylistic choice. *Je me appelle is ungrammatical in writing and impossible in pronunciation.

Placement: before the verb (normally)

Like other object pronouns, the reflexive pronoun sits immediately before the conjugated verb in declarative and negative sentences.

In modal constructions (aller, vouloir, pouvoir, devoir, savoir + infinitive), the pronoun goes before the infinitive, not before the modal — because the pronoun belongs to the pronominal verb, which is in infinitive form.

The pronoun also matches the subject of the modal — je vais me coucher, not *je vais se coucher. This is a frequent A2 error: forgetting that me/te/nous/vous track the subject.

Affirmative imperative: pronoun goes after, te → toi

In the affirmative imperative, the reflexive pronoun moves after the verb and is attached with a hyphen — and te changes to its tonic form toi.

In the negative imperative, the pronoun goes back to its normal pre-verbal position, and te stays as te.

So affirmative lève-toi but negative ne te lève pas. The asymmetry between affirmative and negative imperatives is one of the trickiest patterns in French — a dedicated page on multiple-clitic order in the imperative covers it in depth.

Compound tenses: always être

The single most important fact about pronominal verbs in past tense: they always take être as their auxiliary, never avoir. There are no exceptions.

The past participle agreement is more subtle — sometimes it agrees with the subject (elle s'est levée), sometimes it doesn't (elle s'est lavé les mains — no agreement, because les mains is the direct object). That depends on whether the se is functioning as a direct or indirect object, which is the topic of a dedicated sub-page (se direct vs indirect). For now, just remember the auxiliary rule: pronominal = être.

What "reflexive" really means

The label reflexive is somewhat misleading. The classic reflexive use — the action reflects back on the subject (je me lave = I wash myself) — is just one of four uses of the se-pronoun in French:

1. True reflexive: subject acts on itself. Je me lave (I wash myself).
2. Reciprocal: members of a plural subject act on each other. Ils se parlent (they talk to each other).
3. Passive: se avoids naming an agent. Le français se parle au Canada (French is spoken in Canada).
4. Idiomatic / lexicalized: the se is part of the verb's meaning, not interpretable as "self." Se souvenir (to remember), s'en aller (to leave), se moquer de (to make fun of).

The pronoun is the same in all four cases; the meaning depends on the verb and the context. Ils se regardent could mean they look at themselves (in the mirror) or they look at each other — usually only context disambiguates.

For each of these, see the dedicated pages on reciprocal use, passive se, and idiomatic pronominal verbs.

A note on "on"

The pronoun on triggers third-person se: on se voit demain (we'll see each other tomorrow). This is one of the most natural conversational uses of pronominal verbs in spoken French.

What English has and doesn't have

English has myself, yourself, himself, themselves — but they are used much less than French me, te, se, nous, vous, se. Many French pronominal verbs translate to English without any reflexive marker at all:

• se réveiller → to wake up (no "oneself")
• se lever → to get up
• se coucher → to go to bed
• se promener → to take a walk
• s'asseoir → to sit down
• se souvenir → to remember
• se reposer → to rest
• se dépêcher → to hurry

English speakers tend to drop the se under interference: *je lève meaning I get up. Wrong — je lève means I lift (something else, not myself). The pronoun is what makes the verb intransitive and reflexive.

Common Mistakes

Key takeaways

• Six forms: me, te, se, nous, vous, se. Only se is reflexive-only (3rd person, sing. and plural alike).
• Me, te, se elide to m', t', s' before a vowel; nous and vous never elide.
• Position: before the conjugated verb; before the infinitive in modal constructions; after the verb (with hyphen, te → toi) in affirmative imperatives only.
• Compound tenses: always être. No exceptions.
• The pronoun must agree with the subject — je me, tu te, nous nous, etc. Never lock onto se.
• "Reflexive" is a label of convenience: the actual semantic uses are reflexive, reciprocal, passive, and idiomatic.