A verbe pronominal — what English grammarians call a "reflexive" verb — is a French verb that always carries a pronoun matching its subject: me, te, se, nous, vous, se. Je me lave (I wash myself), tu te lèves (you get up), il se réveille (he wakes up), nous nous habillons (we get dressed), vous vous asseyez (you sit down), ils se rencontrent (they meet each other). The reflexive pronoun is not optional; it is part of how the verb is conjugated, and dropping it changes the meaning or makes the sentence ungrammatical.
Pronominal verbs are not a single thing. They cover four distinct functions — and once you know the four, you can read almost any pronominal verb you encounter and know what it means. This overview lays out the system as a whole; dedicated subpages drill each function in detail.
The reflexive pronouns
French has six reflexive pronouns, one for each grammatical person. The third-person singular and plural share the same form se — French does not distinguish reflexive himself from herself from itself from themselves; all are se.
| Person | Subject | Reflexive pronoun |
|---|---|---|
| 1sg | je | me (m' before vowel) |
| 2sg | tu | te (t' before vowel) |
| 3sg | il / elle / on | se (s' before vowel) |
| 1pl | nous | nous |
| 2pl | vous | vous |
| 3pl | ils / elles | se (s' before vowel) |
The 1pl nous and 2pl vous pronouns are identical to the subject pronouns — there is no morphological difference between nous the subject and nous the reflexive object. This sometimes confuses learners, but in practice the two nous always sit on either side of the verb: Nous nous lavons — first nous is subject, second is reflexive.
Je me lave les mains avant chaque repas.
I wash my hands before every meal.
Tu te lèves toujours à six heures, c'est dingue.
You always get up at six, it's crazy.
Il se réveille à peine et il est déjà énervé.
He's barely awake and he's already annoyed.
Nous nous habillons en cinq minutes, on est en retard.
We're getting dressed in five minutes, we're late.
Vous vous asseyez où vous voulez.
You sit wherever you like.
Ils se rencontrent souvent au café du coin.
They often meet at the corner café.
The reflexive pronoun goes before the conjugated verb in the indicative — same position as any object pronoun (me, te, le, lui, etc.). It comes between the subject and the verb in affirmative sentences, and between the ne and the verb in negative sentences.
Je ne me souviens pas de son nom.
I don't remember his name. (ne + me + souviens + pas)
Tu ne te dépêches jamais !
You never hurry!
The four functional categories
Pronominal verbs in French come in four flavors. A verb may belong to just one category or, in some cases, to several depending on context. Understanding the four categories is the foundation for using any pronominal verb correctly.
1. Reflexive proper: subject acts on itself
The most basic case. The subject performs the action on itself; the reflexive pronoun is the direct object of the verb. Je me lave literally means "I wash myself" — je is the agent, me is the patient, and they refer to the same person.
Elle se regarde dans le miroir avant de sortir.
She looks at herself in the mirror before going out.
Tu te coupes les ongles trop court.
You cut your nails too short.
Le chat se lèche pour se nettoyer.
The cat licks itself to clean itself.
This category is covered in detail on the Reflexive Proper page. Common verbs: se laver (wash), se coucher (lie down / go to bed), se réveiller (wake up), s'habiller (get dressed), se brosser (brush — usually with body part), se peigner (comb), se regarder (look at oneself), se couper (cut oneself).
2. Reciprocal: subjects act on each other
When the subject is plural, the reflexive pronoun can mean "each other" rather than "themselves." Ils se rencontrent can mean "they meet each other" (reciprocal) — not "they meet themselves."
Marie et Paul se sont rencontrés à Paris en 2018.
Marie and Paul met (each other) in Paris in 2018.
On s'écrit tous les jours depuis trois ans.
We write to each other every day, for three years now.
Ils s'aiment vraiment, ça se voit.
They really love each other, you can tell.
Nous nous parlons rarement, mais ça va quand même.
We rarely talk to each other, but it's still okay.
To remove ambiguity, French sometimes adds l'un l'autre (each other) or mutuellement (mutually) — Ils s'aident l'un l'autre (They help each other) is unambiguously reciprocal. Without the marker, context decides. Covered in detail on the Reciprocal Verbs page.
3. Intrinsic / inherent: the verb is just pronominal
Some verbs are pronominal not because the subject acts on itself, but because the se is lexically baked into the verb. Je me souviens (I remember) does not mean "I remember myself" — se souvenir is just the way to say "remember" in French. The pronoun is fossilized; you cannot ask "remember whom?" and get moi-même as an answer.
Je me souviens de notre première rencontre.
I remember our first meeting. (no reflexive sense — se souvenir = remember)
Il se moque toujours de mes idées, ça me blesse.
He always mocks my ideas, it hurts me. (se moquer = mock — not 'mock himself')
Elle s'évanouit quand elle voit du sang.
She faints when she sees blood. (s'évanouir is intrinsically pronominal)
Tais-toi, j'essaie d'écouter !
Be quiet, I'm trying to listen! (se taire — not 'silence yourself')
Common intrinsic pronominals: se souvenir (remember), se moquer (mock), s'évanouir (faint), se taire (be quiet), se plaindre (complain), s'enfuir (flee), se méfier (be wary), s'efforcer (strive). Covered in detail on the Intrinsic Verbs page.
4. Passive pronominal: a French alternative to the passive voice
A productive use of pronominal verbs in French is to express something like an English passive — without an explicit agent. Ce livre se lit facilement literally translates as "This book reads itself easily," but the meaning is "This book is easy to read" or "This book reads easily." The subject is not really an agent; the verb describes a property of the subject.
Ce livre se lit en une soirée.
This book can be read in an evening.
Le vin blanc se sert frais.
White wine is served chilled.
Ça ne se dit pas.
That's not said. / You don't say that. (used as a polite reproach)
Cette robe se lave en machine.
This dress can be machine-washed.
This pattern is one of French's most elegant features: it lets you avoid the heavier passive voice (est lavée par, est lue par) when the agent is unimportant or generic. Covered on the Passive Pronominal page.
All pronominal verbs use être in compound tenses
This is the second non-negotiable fact about pronominal verbs (after the reflexive-pronoun rule). In the passé composé, the plus-que-parfait, the futur antérieur, and any other compound tense, every pronominal verb uses être as its auxiliary — regardless of which auxiliary it would take in its non-pronominal form.
Je me suis lavé(e) ce matin avant de partir.
I washed (myself) this morning before leaving. (être, not avoir)
Elle s'est réveillée tard ce dimanche.
She woke up late this Sunday.
Nous nous sommes rencontrés au mariage de Léa.
We met (each other) at Léa's wedding.
Ils se sont disputés toute la soirée.
They argued all evening.
Tu t'étais déjà couché quand je t'ai appelé.
You had already gone to bed when I called you. (plus-que-parfait — t'étais)
This is the case even for verbs that take avoir in their non-pronominal form. Laver (non-pronominal) takes avoir: J'ai lavé la voiture. Se laver (pronominal) takes être: Je me suis lavé. The pronominal form switches the auxiliary.
The reasoning is historical: pronominal verbs in Romance languages are descended from constructions where the subject was, in a sense, both the doer and the thing affected — and Romance auxiliaries patterned être with verbs whose subject was changed by the action. The pattern has been generalized to all pronominal verbs in modern French.
Past participle agreement: the trickiest piece
The catch with être + past participle is that the participle agrees with something — but with what depends on the verb's structure. The full rules live on the Pronominal Verbs in Passé Composé page; here is the headline.
The past participle of a pronominal verb agrees with the preceding direct object. Crucially, the reflexive pronoun is sometimes the direct object (and triggers agreement), sometimes the indirect object (and does not). The default situation:
- Reflexive pronoun is the direct object: agreement happens. Elle s'est lavée (She washed herself — the reflexive s' is DO; participle agrees: lavée).
- Reflexive pronoun is the indirect object (because there is a separate direct object after the verb): no agreement with the reflexive. Elle s'est lavé les mains (She washed her hands — les mains is the DO, s' is IO; participle stays lavé, no agreement).
Elle s'est lavée.
She washed herself. (s' is DO — agreement: lavée)
Elle s'est lavé les mains.
She washed her hands. (les mains is DO, follows verb — no agreement: lavé)
Les mains qu'elle s'est lavées étaient sales.
The hands she washed were dirty. (les mains is DO and precedes verb via the relative — agreement: lavées)
For intrinsic pronominal verbs (se souvenir, se moquer), the reflexive pronoun is treated as a direct object for agreement purposes, even if it makes no logical sense to call it that. This is a convention of the language.
Elle s'est souvenue de moi tout de suite.
She remembered me right away. (intrinsic verb — agreement applies)
Ils se sont moqués de nous toute la soirée.
They made fun of us all evening.
The agreement rules are notorious for being fiddly. The good news: in spoken French, almost none of this is audible — lavé and lavée sound identical. It matters in writing.
Pronoun position in different tenses
The reflexive pronoun moves with the verb. In simple tenses, it sits before the conjugated verb. In compound tenses, it sits before the auxiliary. With infinitives, it sits before the infinitive. With imperatives, the position depends on affirmative vs. negative.
| Construction | Position | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Simple tense | before conjugated verb | Je me lève à sept heures. |
| Compound tense | before auxiliary | Je me suis levé à sept heures. |
| Infinitive | before infinitive | Je vais me lever tôt demain. |
| Modal + infinitive | before infinitive | Tu dois te coucher. |
| Affirmative imperative | after verb (with hyphen) | Lève-toi ! |
| Negative imperative | before verb | Ne te lève pas ! |
Demain matin je vais me lever à six heures.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to get up at six.
Tu dois te coucher avant minuit.
You have to go to bed before midnight.
Lève-toi, il fait beau dehors !
Get up, the weather's nice outside!
Ne te lève pas, je vais chercher le café.
Don't get up, I'll get the coffee.
The pronoun always tracks the verb form it modifies. In Je vais me lever, the me belongs to lever (the infinitive), not to vais; that is why it sits between vais and lever.
How French differs from English here
English has reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, himself, etc.), but they appear only in the reflexive proper sense — and even then, English often drops them. I wash every morning — no reflexive needed. I shave — no reflexive. French requires the pronoun in every pronominal use: Je me lave tous les matins, Je me rase.
English does not mark reciprocal meaning with a reflexive pronoun; it uses the phrase each other or just relies on context. They love each other — no reflexive in English. French uses se: Ils s'aiment.
English has nothing like the intrinsic pronominal verbs. Remember, mock, flee, complain are all simple transitive or intransitive verbs in English. In French, they happen to be pronominal: se souvenir, se moquer, s'enfuir, se plaindre. There is no logic to it — you have to learn the lexical fact.
English also lacks the passive pronominal as a productive pattern. This wine is served cold uses the passive voice; French prefers Ce vin se sert frais. The pronominal-as-passive is one of French's signature constructions.
Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Forgetting the reflexive pronoun.
❌ Je lève à sept heures.
Wrong: lever without a reflexive means 'to lift'. The pronominal is se lever — Je me lève à sept heures.
✅ Je me lève à sept heures.
I get up at seven.
Mistake 2: Using avoir instead of être in compound tenses.
❌ J'ai me lavé ce matin.
Wrong: pronominal verbs use être — Je me suis lavé(e) ce matin.
✅ Je me suis lavée ce matin.
I washed (myself) this morning.
Mistake 3: Using a non-matching reflexive pronoun.
❌ Tu se lèves toujours en retard.
Wrong: tu uses te, not se — Tu te lèves.
✅ Tu te lèves toujours en retard.
You always get up late.
Mistake 4: Trying to use a reflexive pronoun for a meaning that is just transitive.
❌ Je me regarde la télé tous les soirs.
Wrong: regarder la télé is not pronominal — Je regarde la télé. The me makes no sense here.
✅ Je regarde la télé tous les soirs.
I watch TV every evening.
Mistake 5: Translating an intrinsic pronominal as if the se meant 'oneself'.
❌ Je me souviens moi-même de toi.
Wrong / redundant: se souvenir doesn't mean 'remember oneself'. The se is just part of the verb — Je me souviens de toi.
✅ Je me souviens de toi.
I remember you.
What lives on the subpages
This overview gives you the system in outline. Each function gets its own page with full paradigms, drill examples, and edge cases:
- Reflexive Proper — subject acts on itself; body-part constructions; agreement rules.
- Reciprocal Verbs — "each other" meaning; l'un l'autre disambiguation.
- Intrinsic Verbs — verbs that are always pronominal without reflexive sense.
- Passive Pronominal — ça se fait, ça ne se dit pas, le vin se sert frais.
- Passé Composé Agreement — the participle agreement rules in compound tenses.
Key takeaways
- A French pronominal verb takes a reflexive pronoun matching its subject: me, te, se, nous, vous, se. The pronoun is not optional.
- Four functional categories: reflexive proper (act on self), reciprocal (act on each other), intrinsic (the verb is just pronominal), and passive pronominal (alternative to passive voice).
- All pronominal verbs use être in compound tenses, even when their non-pronominal form takes avoir. Je me suis lavé, never J'ai me lavé.
- Past participle agrees with the preceding direct object, which is usually but not always the reflexive pronoun. The agreement rule depends on whether the reflexive is functioning as direct or indirect object.
- The reflexive pronoun position follows the same rules as any object pronoun: before the verb in indicative, between auxiliary and participle in compound tenses, before the infinitive when there is one, after the verb (hyphenated) in affirmative imperatives, before the verb in negative imperatives.
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
- Reflexive Proper: Subject Acts on ItselfA2 — The cleanest pronominal pattern: the subject performs an action on itself. Je me lave (I wash myself), elle s'habille (she gets dressed), nous nous baignons (we bathe). With body parts, French uses the reflexive plus a definite article, not a possessive.
- Verbes Pronominaux Réciproques: action mutuelleA2 — Reciprocal pronominals express 'each other' or 'one another' — actions that plural subjects do mutually. The same little 'se' that marks reflexive verbs also carries the reciprocal load, with 'l'un l'autre' available when you need to remove ambiguity.
- Verbes Essentiellement PronominauxA2 — Some French verbs always carry a reflexive pronoun even when there is no reflexive meaning at all — *se souvenir*, *se moquer*, *s'évanouir*, *se taire*. The 'se' is part of the verb's lexical entry. A second category of verbs has both pronominal and non-pronominal forms with completely different meanings.
- Le Pronominal à Sens PassifB1 — French speakers prefer the pronominal passive — *ce livre se lit facilement*, *le vin rouge se boit avec la viande* — over the heavy *être + past participle* in many everyday contexts. It's the natural way to express norms, instructions, and how things are done.
- L'Accord du Participe Passé des Verbes PronominauxB1 — Pronominal verbs use *être* in compound tenses but follow a different agreement rule than other *être* verbs: the past participle agrees with the reflexive pronoun *only when that pronoun is the direct object*. Body-part constructions and verbs taking *à quelqu'un* are the trap.
- Reflexive Pronouns: me, te, se, nous, vous, seA2 — Reflexive pronouns (me, te, se, nous, vous, se) accompany pronominal verbs and refer back to the subject. They sit before the verb in normal sentences, attach with hyphens after affirmative imperatives, and force the auxiliary être in compound tenses.