Moods in French: Indicatif, Subjonctif, Conditionnel, Impératif

A mood (French mode) is the verb's way of marking what the speaker is doing with a sentence. Reporting a fact? Expressing a wish? Imagining a hypothetical? Issuing a command? French has four finite moods — indicatif, subjonctif, conditionnel, impératif — plus three non-finite forms (infinitif, participe, gérondif). Each finite mood can carry several tenses, but the mood itself is what tells you the speaker's stance.

This page is a tour of the four moods. It will show you what each one is for, give you a feel for how they sound in real speech, and point you to the dedicated pages where each one is unpacked. It does not teach the conjugations.

The central French-vs-English insight

Before diving in, here is the comparison to carry with you. English does most of its mood work with modal auxiliaries — would, might, should, could, may, must — placed in front of an unchanging main verb. French does most of its mood work by inflecting the verb itself. The shape of the verb changes; no separate modal word is needed.

This is why mastering French moods is partly an act of noticing: every time your English would slip a modal in (would, might, should), check whether the cleaner French solution is to inflect the verb instead.

Indicatif: the mood of facts

The indicative is the default mood. It is what you use when you state something as true, ask about something you treat as factually answerable, or narrate events. It is by far the largest mood, with eight tenses in total — four simple (je parle, je parlais, je parlai, je parlerai) and four compound (j'ai parlé, j'avais parlé, j'eus parlé, j'aurai parlé).

The indicative is the backbone of narration. Novels (in their dialogue and in their passé composé sections), news articles, conversations about what happened or what is happening — all live in this mood. There is nothing subjective about it. Even when the content is false (la Terre est plate — "the Earth is flat"), the mood is still indicative because the speaker is presenting it as a fact, however wrong.

For the eight indicative tenses, see Tenses in French.

Subjonctif: the mood of subjective stance

This is where French and English diverge most sharply. The English subjunctive has nearly disappeared — it survives in fossils like if I were you and I suggest he go, and most native speakers ignore even those. The French subjonctif, by contrast, is alive and productive. Educated French speakers use it constantly, in ordinary conversation as readily as in writing, and getting it wrong is one of the clearest tells of a foreign speaker.

The subjonctif appears in subordinate clauses — clauses introduced by que — when the main clause expresses one of a small set of meanings. Linguists call these the triggers.

• Necessity or obligation: il faut que, il est nécessaire que, il est important que
• Wish or desire: je veux que, je souhaite que, j'aimerais que, je préfère que
• Emotion: je suis content que, j'ai peur que, je regrette que, ça m'étonne que
• Doubt or uncertainty: je doute que, je ne pense pas que, il est possible que
• Judgment: il est dommage que, c'est bizarre que, c'est important que
• Conjunctions: bien que, avant que, pour que, à condition que, jusqu'à ce que, sans que

Notice how each example contains an evaluation — a need, a wish, an emotion, a concession — about the subordinate event. The subordinate verb is in the subjunctive because the speaker is not asserting that the event is true; they are wanting it, fearing it, conceding it, conditioning on it. Compare:

The shift from vient to vienne is small in form but profound in meaning. Je sais que (I know) presents the subordinate clause as fact, so it stays in the indicative. Je veux que (I want) opens the subordinate clause to my wishful framing, so it switches to the subjunctive. This is the core logic of the mood: the subjonctif marks information that the speaker is holding at arm's length — wanting, doubting, evaluating — rather than asserting outright.

The subjonctif has four tenses in classical French — présent, imparfait, passé, plus-que-parfait — but in modern usage only the présent (que je parle) and the passé (que j'aie parlé) are productive. The imparfait du subjonctif (que je parlasse) and the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif (que j'eusse parlé) belong to formal literary writing and are recognition-only for almost all learners.

The subjonctif présent is one of the largest topics in French grammar, and it earns its own dedicated section. See The Subjunctive: Overview and Trigger: Falloir to start.

Conditionnel: the mood of "would"

The conditionnel is French's mood of hypotheticals, polite requests, reported claims, and counterfactuals. In broad strokes, wherever English uses would (or should and could in their hypothetical senses), French uses the conditionnel.

The conditionnel has just two tenses: présent (je parlerais) and passé (j'aurais parlé).

1. Hypothetical outcomes — the apodosis of si-clauses

The closest match to English would. You use the conditionnel to describe what would happen if some condition were met. The condition itself goes in the imparfait.

This is the si + imparfait → conditionnel construction, one of the most important patterns in French. Note the contrast with English: if I had + would uses the past in the if-clause and the modal in the result. French uses the imparfait in the si-clause and the conditionnel in the result.

2. Polite requests

The conditionnel softens requests dramatically. Where English uses I would like, French uses je voudrais. Asking for something with the indicative je veux (I want) is grammatically correct but socially blunt — it sounds demanding, almost rude in a service context. Je voudrais is the version every French speaker uses at a café, a shop, a restaurant.

This use of the conditional for politeness is one of the few places where French is more direct than English in form (no extra word) but more polite in tone. The shift from veux to voudrais costs you nothing and changes the whole register of the request.

3. Future-in-the-past — reported speech

When you are reporting in the past what was, at the time, a future event, French uses the conditionnel présent (or conditionnel passé for completed events relative to the future point). This is one of the most counterintuitive uses for English speakers.

In English, "he would come" looks like a present conditional. In French, the conditionnel is required because the coming was future relative to the moment of telling, but both events are now in the past. This is the futur dans le passé — the same form as the conditional, used for a different job.

4. Reported information — the journalistic conditional

When journalists report information they have heard but cannot confirm, French uses the conditionnel. The English equivalent is roundabout (apparently, reportedly, allegedly), but French carries the entire meaning in the verb form.

You will hear this constantly on the news and read it in the press. It is a register-marked use; in casual conversation, French speakers prefer overt phrases like il paraît que or on dit que.

For the full conditional, see The Conditional: Overview.

Impératif: the mood of commands

The imperative is the simplest mood to describe but has its quirks. It is used for direct commands, requests, and instructions. It exists only in the present (a passé form exists but is essentially literary), and it has only three forms — tu, nous, vous — with no first-person-singular form (you cannot command yourself).

The dropped -s

For -er verbs (and for aller, ouvrir, offrir, savoir), the tu imperative drops the final -s of the present indicative. Tu parles → Parle !; tu vas → Va !; tu manges → Mange ! This is the spelling that makes the imperative recognizable on the page. The -s comes back in the rare tu-imperative followed by the pronouns en or y: Vas-y !, Manges-en ! — for euphony, to avoid hiatus.

For -ir (with -iss-) and -re verbs, the tu form is identical to the present indicative: Finis !, Vends !, Prends !

Pronoun position

In affirmative imperatives, object pronouns come after the verb, joined by hyphens: Donne-le-moi ! (Give it to me!). In negative imperatives, pronouns return to their normal pre-verbal position: Ne me le donne pas ! (Don't give it to me!). This is one of the few places where French inverts its usual pronoun rules.

For the full mechanics, see The Imperative: Overview.

The non-finite forms in brief

Three forms do not encode person. They are the building blocks of compound tenses and of many subordinate constructions, and they are covered in their own pages.

The participe passé is essential — every compound tense uses it. The gérondif (en parlant, en mangeant, en partant) appears in adverbial clauses to express simultaneity, manner, or means. The participe présent is mostly fossilized in nouns and adjectives (un livre intéressant, un enfant souriant), and is rarely formed productively. The infinitive functions as a verbal noun and as the form taken after most prepositions (avant de partir, sans rien dire).

A quick comparison: parler across the moods

To see all four moods in action with the same verb, here is parler in the je form, in the simple tenses:

The morphology shifts subtly across the row. Parle (indicative) and parle (subjunctive) are spelled identically and pronounced identically; you can only tell them apart from the trigger that introduces the clause (que + a subjective context selects subjunctive). Parlerai (future) and parlerais (conditional) differ by a single letter; the pronunciation distinction is /paʁləʁe/ vs /paʁləʁɛ/, a contrast that is genuinely difficult for learners and even sometimes blurred by native speakers in casual speech.

Three things English speakers most often get wrong

Be honest about the high-frequency traps. Here are the three you should watch for.

1. Indicative after subjunctive triggers

The most common error. After il faut que, je veux que, bien que, avant que, pour que, the subjunctive is required. English speakers, having no comparable mood in their own language, slip into the indicative.

2. Veux instead of voudrais in service contexts

Asking for things with je veux in a shop or café sounds rude. Use the conditional.

3. Future tense in reported speech

After a past reporting verb, French uses the conditional, not the future, for events that were future at the time of reporting.

Common mistakes

Where to go next

Each mood earns its own section. Start with the indicative tenses you are likely already learning (présent, imparfait, passé composé). Then work into The Subjunctive: Overview — the biggest single hurdle for English speakers — and The Conditional: Overview, which you will need every time you walk into a café. The imperative is shorter and can be picked up alongside the indicative. For the tense inventory across all moods, see Tenses in French: A Complete Map.