Some irregular verbs don't fit into any of the larger families. Rire ("to laugh"), conclure ("to conclude"), and plaire ("to please") each form a small two- or three-verb cluster of their own. They appear together on this page not because they share a paradigm — they don't — but because they are short, common, and frequently confused with regular verbs that look similar.
The most consequential of the three is plaire. It is the French equivalent of Italian piacere and Spanish gustar — a verb where the thing that is liked is the grammatical subject, and the person who likes it appears as an indirect object. This inversion is alien to English ("the book is pleasing to me" rather than "I like the book"), and once you have internalized it, a whole class of French sentences suddenly makes sense.
Rire — to laugh
Rire looks like it might be regular, but its 1pl and 2pl forms keep the -i- of the stem rather than dropping it, and the 3pl is identical to the singular in pronunciation. The full present:
| Person | Form | Pronunciation | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | ris | /ʒə ʁi/ | I laugh |
| tu | ris | /ty ʁi/ | you laugh |
| il / elle / on | rit | /il ʁi/ | he/she/one laughs |
| nous | rions | /nu ʁjɔ̃/ | we laugh |
| vous | riez | /vu ʁje/ | you laugh (formal/plural) |
| ils / elles | rient | /il ʁi/ | they laugh |
- Past participle: ri (no agreement — rire is intransitive).
- Auxiliary: avoir (j'ai ri).
On a tellement ri qu'on en avait mal au ventre.
We laughed so hard our stomachs hurt.
Tu ris de quoi ? — Rien, j'ai pensé à un truc.
What are you laughing at? — Nothing, I just thought of something.
Ils rient dès qu'ils voient leur petite sœur faire des grimaces.
They laugh the moment they see their little sister making faces.
The form vous riiez in the imparfait deserves a warning: yes, it really does have two i's in a row. The first comes from the stem, the second from the imparfait ending -iez. Nous riions is similarly orthographically heavy. This is one of the rare French spelling traps where two identical vowels stack — see double-i imparfait/subjunctive for the pattern across other verbs (nous étudiions, vous criiez).
Sourire — to smile
Sourire (literally "to under-laugh") follows rire exactly. Its present-tense paradigm is je souris, tu souris, il sourit, nous sourions, vous souriez, ils sourient; past participle souri.
Elle sourit toujours quand elle voit son chien.
She always smiles when she sees her dog.
Le bébé a souri pour la première fois ce matin.
The baby smiled for the first time this morning.
The expression rire jaune (literally "to laugh yellow") means to give a forced, awkward laugh — the kind you produce when something isn't really funny but you laugh out of social politeness.
Conclure — to conclude
Conclure is regular-looking until you notice it doesn't drop the -u- of the stem before -ons and -ez. The full present paradigm:
| Person | Form | Pronunciation | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | conclus | /ʒə kɔ̃kly/ | I conclude |
| tu | conclus | /ty kɔ̃kly/ | you conclude |
| il / elle / on | conclut | /il kɔ̃kly/ | he/she concludes |
| nous | concluons | /nu kɔ̃klyɔ̃/ | we conclude |
| vous | concluez | /vu kɔ̃klye/ | you conclude |
| ils / elles | concluent | /il kɔ̃kly/ | they conclude |
- Past participle: conclu (no -s).
- Auxiliary: avoir (j'ai conclu).
Je conclus que tu n'as pas envie d'y aller.
I conclude that you don't want to go.
Ils ont conclu un accord après six heures de négociation.
They reached an agreement after six hours of negotiation.
Pour conclure, je voudrais remercier toute l'équipe.
In closing, I'd like to thank the whole team.
The conclure family — and a trap
A few verbs follow the same pattern as conclure:
- exclure — to exclude
- inclure — to include
- occlure — to occlude (technical/medical)
The conjugation is identical: j'exclus, tu exclus, il exclut, nous excluons, vous excluez, ils excluent.
But there is an important orthographic trap with the past participles:
| Verb | Past participle | Note |
|---|---|---|
| conclure | conclu | no -s |
| exclure | exclu | no -s |
| inclure | inclus | WITH -s — agrees inclus / incluse / inclus / incluses |
| occlure | occlus | WITH -s |
This is one of those genuinely arbitrary points of French orthography — there is no logical reason inclus keeps an -s while exclu doesn't. You have to memorize it. The trap is most visible when inclus(e) is used as an adjective:
Le service est inclus dans le prix.
Service is included in the price.
Les taxes sont incluses, vous n'avez rien à ajouter.
The taxes are included — you don't need to add anything.
Compare with exclu as an adjective:
Il s'est senti exclu de la conversation.
He felt excluded from the conversation.
Plaire — to please (the French gustar)
Plaire is the most important verb on this page. It is how French expresses to like. The catch is that the grammatical subject is the thing that is liked, and the person who likes it is an indirect object. The literal sense of ça me plaît is "that pleases (to) me" — i.e., "I like that."
This is the same construction as Italian piacere, Spanish gustar, and (more loosely) Portuguese agradar. English has lost the equivalent construction; the closest is the slightly archaic "this pleases me," but native English speakers don't say that anymore — they say "I like this."
The full paradigm
| Person | Form | Pronunciation | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | plais | /ʒə plɛ/ | I please / I am pleasing |
| tu | plais | /ty plɛ/ | you please |
| il / elle / on | plaît | /il plɛ/ | he/she/it pleases |
| nous | plaisons | /nu plɛzɔ̃/ | we please |
| vous | plaisez | /vu plɛze/ | you please |
| ils / elles | plaisent | /il plɛz/ | they please |
- Past participle: plu (homonym of plu from pleuvoir; context disambiguates).
- Auxiliary: avoir (j'ai plu).
The circumflex on il plaît is one of the few accents that the 1990 spelling reform tolerates dropping — il plait is now also accepted in school dictations — but the traditional spelling il plaît is still by far the more common in print.
How the construction works
In French, you do not say "I like the book." You say "the book is pleasing to me":
| French | Literal | Idiomatic English |
|---|---|---|
| Le livre me plaît. | The book pleases me. | I like the book. |
| Cette chanson me plaît. | This song pleases me. | I like this song. |
| Ces films me plaisent. | These films please me. | I like these films. |
| Tu me plais. | You please me. | I like you (often romantic / attracted). |
The grammatical subject (le livre, cette chanson, ces films, tu) is what triggers the verb agreement. The indirect-object pronoun (me, te, lui, nous, vous, leur) marks who is doing the liking.
Ce restaurant me plaît beaucoup, on y retourne quand tu veux.
I really like this restaurant — we'll go back whenever you want.
Les films d'horreur ne me plaisent pas du tout.
I don't like horror films at all.
Cette idée plaira sûrement à ta mère.
Your mother will definitely like this idea.
Tu lui plais, ça se voit.
She likes you — you can tell.
Il me plaît — about people
When plaire takes a person as the subject, the meaning narrows toward attraction or strong personal liking. Tu me plais is a step beyond je t'aime bien (I like you as a friend); it implies "I find you attractive" or "I'm into you." It's not as strong as je t'aime (I love you), but it is firmly in the romantic-interest register.
Elle te plaît, cette fille ? — Oui, beaucoup.
You like that girl? — Yeah, a lot.
Ils se plaisent depuis le premier jour.
They've liked each other since day one.
(Se plaire — the reflexive form — means either "to like each other" reciprocally or, separately, "to be content somewhere": je me plais bien à Lyon = "I'm happy in Lyon.")
The fixed expression: s'il vous plaît / s'il te plaît
The most common French expression involving plaire is the politeness formula meaning "please":
- S'il vous plaît — formal, plural, or to a stranger
- S'il te plaît — informal, to a single person you are familiar with
Literally, both mean "if it pleases you." The il is dummy il (see falloir/pleuvoir), and the structure is si + il + indirect object + plaît. In writing, these are sometimes abbreviated SVP and STP — particularly in text messages.
Un café, s'il vous plaît.
A coffee, please. (formal — to a server)
Passe-moi le sel, s'il te plaît.
Pass me the salt, please. (informal — to family)
Tu peux baisser la musique, stp ?
Can you turn the music down, please? (text message register)
Plaire vs aimer — a note on register
A common question: when do French speakers use plaire versus aimer for "to like"? Both work, but they have different ranges:
- Aimer
- noun: a steady preference, a stable trait. J'aime le chocolat = I like chocolate (in general).
- Plaire
- indirect pronoun: an immediate impression or reaction. Le chocolat me plaît = I'm enjoying this / it appeals to me.
Both j'aime ce film and ce film me plaît are correct, but the first is a settled judgment ("I love this film as part of who I am") and the second is closer to "this film is appealing to me" — often after first exposure.
For people, the split is sharper: j'aime mes parents means "I love my parents" (family love), while ils me plaisent would mean "I find them likable" (social impression). To say "I like my friend" without romantic overtones, French uses j'aime bien mon ami — note the obligatory bien.
Comparison with English
The construction with plaire is the single most distinctive piece of French verbal grammar for English speakers, because it inverts the subject-object pattern:
- English: subject = the liker, object = the thing liked. I like the book.
- French: subject = the thing liked, object = the liker. Le livre me plaît.
This is also true of:
- Italian piacere (Mi piace il libro)
- Spanish gustar (Me gusta el libro)
- Portuguese agradar (Agrada-me o livro — though Portuguese also has the simpler gostar de)
Romance languages collectively retained the Latin pattern where verbs of mental experience put the experiencer in the dative. English was once like this too — Old English me thinketh ("it seems to me") survives only in the fossilized methinks — but modern English has flipped almost all such constructions to put the experiencer as the subject.
For French speakers, the natural way to say "I like X" really is X me plaît. J'aime X is also fine and arguably more common today, but plaire remains the more elegant and idiomatic form for first impressions.
Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Treating plaire as if it took a direct object.
❌ Je plais ce livre.
Incorrect — plaire does not take a direct object. The thing liked is the subject.
✅ Ce livre me plaît.
I like this book.
Mistake 2: Forgetting the indirect-object pronoun.
❌ Plaît le film ?
Incomprehensible — French requires the experiencer pronoun.
✅ Le film te plaît ?
Do you like the film?
Mistake 3: Conjugating plaire with the experiencer instead of the thing liked.
❌ Les enfants me plais.
Incorrect — the children are the plural subject; the verb agrees with them, not with me.
✅ Les enfants me plaisent.
I like the children.
Mistake 4: Spelling inclus without an -s.
❌ Le service est inclu dans le prix.
Incorrect — the past participle of inclure is inclus, with -s.
✅ Le service est inclus dans le prix.
Service is included in the price.
Mistake 5: Spelling conclu with an -s.
❌ J'ai conclus un marché avec eux.
Incorrect — the past participle of conclure is conclu, no -s.
✅ J'ai conclu un marché avec eux.
I struck a deal with them.
Mistake 6: Forgetting the double -i- in the imparfait nous riions / vous riiez.
❌ Nous rions toujours en regardant cette série. (intended as imparfait)
Wrong — in imparfait, the form is nous riions, with two i's. The single-i form is the present.
✅ Nous riions toujours en regardant cette série.
We always used to laugh watching that show. (imparfait)
(In the present tense the form is nous rions — one i. The double -i- only appears in imparfait and present subjunctive.)
Key takeaways
- Rire and sourire keep the -i- of the stem before -ons/-ez (nous rions, vous riez), giving the imparfait its famous double -i- (nous riions).
- Conclure, exclure, inclure, and occlure share a paradigm, but their past participles split: conclu and exclu without -s, but inclus and occlus with -s.
- Plaire is the French gustar: the thing liked is the subject, the liker is an indirect object. Tu me plais = "I like you," literally "you please me."
- The fixed expression s'il vous/te plaît ("please") is built from plaire
- dummy il.
- Plaire and aimer both translate "to like," but plaire signals an impression or reaction while aimer signals a stable preference.
Now practice French
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning French→Related Topics
- Le Présent: Map of irregular verbs in FrenchA2 — A navigation index of every irregular present-tense pattern in French — from être and avoir at the top of frequency to the impersonal pleuvoir at the edge — organized by stem-alternation type with cross-references to dedicated pages.
- Le Présent: Verbes Réguliers en -erA1 — The full paradigm for regular 1er-groupe verbs in the present indicative — endings -e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent, the four-way homophony of singular and ils forms, and the high-frequency verbs you need first.
- L'Imparfait with Verbs of Liking and MissingB1 — Why aimer, plaire, manquer, and similar emotion verbs default to the imparfait when describing past feelings — and how the inverted construction me manques / me plaît reorganizes English intuitions about subject and object.
- Il Impersonnel vs PersonnelA2 — The pronoun il does double duty in French — sometimes it refers to a real masculine entity, sometimes it's just a grammatical placeholder. Learn to tell them apart.
- The Three Conjugation Groups: -er, -ir, -reA1 — How French verbs sort into the 1er, 2e, and 3e groupes — and why one group has 90% of the verbs and another is everything that doesn't fit.
- Pronominaux IdiomatiquesB2 — The pronominal verbs whose meaning isn't predictable from the non-pronominal form — se rendre compte, se débrouiller, s'en aller, se taire — with the prepositions they require and the everyday situations where they appear.