S'asseoir ("to sit down") is one of the most useful pronominal verbs in French and one of the strangest to conjugate. It is famous among French learners for having two officially accepted paradigms — both correct, both in modern use, with neither one decisively winning over the other. School dictations grade both as correct. The 1990 spelling reform explicitly endorsed the simpler of the two as a permitted alternative spelling. Native speakers swap between them without hesitation.
This page presents both paradigms, gives you the principles for choosing between them, and works through the pronominal apparatus that s'asseoir shares with all reflexive verbs in French — including the être auxiliary in compound tenses, past-participle agreement, and the imperative.
Why s'asseoir is special
Most French verbs settled into a single conjugation centuries ago. S'asseoir never did. Its present-tense paradigm has split into two parallel tracks:
- Pattern 1: the -ois- / -oy- pattern (more common in spoken modern French)
- Pattern 2: the -ied- / -ey- pattern (slightly more formal, more common in older writing)
Both come from the same Latin source (sedere with the prefix ad-, "to seat oneself toward"), but Old French inherited two competing forms — seoir and a derivative asseoir — and the conjugational variants ossified. The 1990 spelling reform officially permits a third spelling, s'assoir without the e, but in practice almost nobody writes it that way; most published French still uses s'asseoir.
You should know both paradigms by sight, even if you only actively use one.
Pattern 1: -ois- / -oy- (more common in modern speech)
| Person | Form | Pronunciation | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | m'assois | /ʒə maswa/ | I sit down |
| tu | t'assois | /ty taswa/ | you sit down |
| il / elle / on | s'assoit | /il saswa/ | he/she sits down |
| nous | nous nous assoyons | /nu nu.zaswajɔ̃/ | we sit down |
| vous | vous vous assoyez | /vu vu.zaswaje/ | you sit down |
| ils / elles | s'assoient | /il saswa/ | they sit down |
This pattern is the more frequent one in everyday spoken French and in most contemporary fiction. It mirrors the -oi-/-oy- alternation you already know from voir, croire, envoyer: -oi- in the singular and 3pl, -oy- before the -ons/-ez endings.
Je m'assois toujours au fond de la salle.
I always sit at the back of the room.
Tu peux t'asseoir là, juste à côté de moi.
You can sit down there, right next to me.
Les enfants s'assoient en cercle pour l'histoire.
The kids sit in a circle for the story.
Pattern 2: -ied- / -ey- (slightly more formal)
| Person | Form | Pronunciation | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | m'assieds | /ʒə masje/ | I sit down |
| tu | t'assieds | /ty tasje/ | you sit down |
| il / elle / on | s'assied | /il sasje/ | he/she sits down |
| nous | nous nous asseyons | /nu nu.zasɛjɔ̃/ | we sit down |
| vous | vous vous asseyez | /vu vu.zasɛje/ | you sit down |
| ils / elles | s'asseyent | /il sasɛj/ | they sit down |
This pattern is older. It survives in literary registers, in older fiction, and in formal speech — for instance, a judge saying Veuillez vous asseoir ("Please be seated") is more likely to use the -ied-/-ey- pattern in their head, even though they utter only the infinitive. School textbooks often present this pattern first because it is more historically transparent.
Madame, je vous en prie, asseyez-vous.
Madam, please, have a seat. (formal)
Il s'assied face à la fenêtre et reste silencieux.
He sits down facing the window and remains silent. (literary)
Nous nous asseyons à la même table tous les jours.
We sit at the same table every day.
The infinitive and the spelling reform
The infinitive form is s'asseoir — with a silent -e- after the -ass-. The 1990 spelling reform officially accepts the alternative s'assoir (no -e-), but this spelling has not really caught on. In published French, you will see s'asseoir in roughly 95% of cases.
For the imperfect, future, conditional, and subjunctive, both paradigms exist in parallel:
| Tense | Pattern 1 (-oy-) | Pattern 2 (-ey-) |
|---|---|---|
| Imparfait (1sg) | je m'assoyais | je m'asseyais |
| Futur simple (1sg) | je m'assoirai | je m'assiérai |
| Conditionnel (1sg) | je m'assoirais | je m'assiérais |
| Subjonctif présent (1sg) | que je m'assoie | que je m'asseye |
The future and conditional of Pattern 2 (je m'assiérai, je m'assiérais) deserve a special mention because they are the only French futures with the cluster -iéra- — quite unusual orthographically. Most learners using Pattern 2 in the present switch to Pattern 1's future (je m'assoirai) without realizing they have switched paradigms.
Compound tenses: être + agreement
S'asseoir is a pronominal verb, so in compound tenses it takes être as auxiliary, not avoir. The past participle is assis, ending in -s — and it agrees with the subject in gender and number, exactly like an adjective.
| Subject | Form |
|---|---|
| Masculine singular | il s'est assis |
| Feminine singular | elle s'est assise |
| Masculine plural | ils se sont assis |
| Feminine plural | elles se sont assises |
Je me suis assise à côté d'elle pendant le concert.
I sat down next to her during the concert. (speaker is feminine)
Ils se sont assis en silence pour écouter le discours.
They sat down in silence to listen to the speech.
Marie et Sophie se sont assises au premier rang.
Marie and Sophie sat down in the front row.
The agreement here works because the reflexive pronoun se is the direct object of asseoir — they are seating themselves. When the reflexive pronoun is the direct object, the participle agrees with it, which because se is co-referent with the subject, ends up looking like agreement with the subject. This is the standard pattern for "true reflexive" verbs. For more, see reflexive-proper and pronominal past-participle agreement.
S'asseoir vs être assis — a critical distinction
This is one of the points where English-speaking learners reliably stumble. Two superficially similar sentences mean very different things:
- Je m'assois → "I sit down" / "I am sitting down" — describes the action of taking a seat.
- Je suis assis(e) → "I am sitting / I am seated" — describes the resulting state.
The first is a dynamic event; the second is a static condition. English collapses both into "I'm sitting" (or "I sit"), but French distinguishes them sharply.
Je m'assois ici tous les matins pour lire le journal.
I sit down here every morning to read the paper.
Je suis assis ici depuis une heure.
I've been sitting here for an hour.
Elle s'est assise sur le banc, et elle est restée assise pendant deux heures.
She sat down on the bench, and she stayed seated for two hours.
The state form être assis(e) uses the past participle as a true adjective — it agrees with the subject (elle est assise, ils sont assis) the way any adjective would. This is parallel to être debout ("to be standing") and être couché(e) ("to be lying down").
The imperative
In the imperative — when you are telling someone to sit down — s'asseoir keeps its pronominal apparatus and you get the reflexive pronoun after the verb in the affirmative, joined by a hyphen. Both paradigms supply imperative forms:
| Person | Pattern 1 | Pattern 2 | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| tu | assois-toi | assieds-toi | sit down (informal) |
| nous | assoyons-nous | asseyons-nous | let's sit down |
| vous | assoyez-vous | asseyez-vous | sit down (formal/plural) |
Asseyez-vous, je vous en prie.
Please have a seat. (formal)
Assois-toi là, à côté de papa.
Sit down there, next to dad. (informal)
Asseyons-nous dans le jardin pour prendre le café.
Let's sit in the garden for coffee.
In the negative imperative, the pronoun returns to before the verb:
Ne t'assois pas sur cette chaise, elle est cassée.
Don't sit on that chair, it's broken.
Ne vous asseyez pas trop près de la fenêtre.
Don't sit too close to the window.
For the full mechanics of pronominal imperatives, see imperative with pronominal verbs.
Non-pronominal asseoir — rare but real
There is a non-pronominal asseoir meaning "to seat (someone)" — to put another person in a seat. It is rare in conversational French and slightly formal:
L'infirmière a assis le patient dans le fauteuil.
The nurse seated the patient in the armchair. (formal/medical)
Asseyez l'enfant sur la chaise haute.
Seat the child in the high chair.
In this transitive use, the auxiliary is avoir (j'ai assis l'enfant), and the past participle agrees only with a preceding direct object. But you will hardly ever encounter this; the pronominal s'asseoir dominates by an enormous margin.
There is also an idiomatic figurative asseoir meaning "to establish, to ground (an authority, a reputation)":
Le nouveau président cherche à asseoir son autorité.
The new president is trying to establish his authority. (formal/journalistic)
This idiomatic use is non-pronominal and sounds quite formal.
Comparison with English
English uses sit for both the action ("I sit down") and the state ("I am sitting"). Sometimes English distinguishes them: I sat down (action, completed) vs I was sitting (state, ongoing). But it does not have a separate verb for the action of taking a seat versus the state of being seated.
French insists on the distinction. You take a seat (s'asseoir), and once you have taken it, you are seated (être assis). Forgetting this and saying je suis en train de m'asseoir when you mean "I am sitting (here, currently)" sounds wrong to a French ear — it would mean "I am in the act of taking my seat right now."
The dual-paradigm phenomenon is also unusual cross-linguistically. Most languages have settled on a single conjugation per verb. In French, s'asseoir sits alongside the verb payer / paie / paye (where 1sg can be je paie or je paye), and a few others that retain optional spellings — but s'asseoir is the most consequential because it touches a high-frequency action verb.
Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Using être assis when an action is meant.
❌ Je suis assis et puis je commence à lire.
Awkward — if you're describing the act of sitting down to start reading, the action verb is needed.
✅ Je m'assois et puis je commence à lire.
I sit down and then start reading.
Mistake 2: Using s'asseoir when a state is meant.
❌ Je m'assois ici depuis une heure.
Incorrect — depuis with a duration takes a state, not a repeated action of sitting.
✅ Je suis assis ici depuis une heure.
I've been sitting here for an hour.
Mistake 3: Using avoir in the compound tense.
❌ Elle s'a assise sur la chaise.
Incorrect — pronominal verbs always take être, never avoir.
✅ Elle s'est assise sur la chaise.
She sat down on the chair.
Mistake 4: Forgetting agreement on the past participle.
❌ Marie s'est assis.
Incorrect — Marie is feminine, so the past participle agrees: assise.
✅ Marie s'est assise.
Marie sat down.
Mistake 5: Mixing the two paradigms inconsistently.
❌ Je m'assois, mais nous nous asseyons.
Inconsistent — better to stick with one paradigm.
✅ Je m'assois, et nous nous assoyons.
I sit down, and we sit down. (Pattern 1 throughout)
✅ Je m'assieds, et nous nous asseyons.
I sit down, and we sit down. (Pattern 2 throughout)
(In real native speech, mixing happens — a speaker may say je m'assois but the imperative asseyez-vous. Both are accepted. But for learners, picking one paradigm and using it consistently is cleaner.)
Mistake 6: Forgetting to drop the -e- in the imperative pronoun toi.
❌ Assois-tu là.
Incorrect — the imperative form of the pronoun is toi, not tu.
✅ Assois-toi là.
Sit down there. (informal)
This is a general rule of pronominal imperatives: te becomes toi in the affirmative imperative.
Key takeaways
- S'asseoir has two officially correct paradigms — Pattern 1 (je m'assois, nous nous assoyons) and Pattern 2 (je m'assieds, nous nous asseyons). Both are accepted; Pattern 1 is slightly more common in modern speech.
- As a pronominal verb, s'asseoir takes être as auxiliary in compound tenses, with the past participle assis agreeing in gender and number with the subject.
- The action (s'asseoir) and the state (être assis) are distinct in French — a distinction English collapses into one verb.
- The imperative is assois-toi / assieds-toi (informal) and asseyez-vous / assoyez-vous (formal/plural).
- A non-pronominal transitive asseoir exists ("to seat someone, to establish") but is rare and formal.
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