Spelling Changes in the Subjonctif

The good news about spelling changes in the subjonctif présent is that they are not really new rules. The same alternations that you have already met in the present indicative — c hardening to ç before a and o, g needing an -e- to stay soft, the silent-e and é mutations of acheter and espérer, the y → i of employer — show up again in the subjonctif because the subjonctif borrows its endings from the same underlying source: a stem from the third-person plural indicative, plus endings whose vowels (mostly -e, -es, -ent, sometimes -ions, -iez) are the ones that trigger orthographic adjustment in the first place.

The bad news is that one of these alternations works backwards in the subjonctif compared to the indicative — and one of them produces a written form (the famous double-i of nous étudiions) that looks like a typo and is genuinely never written by learners until someone explicitly tells them to write it. This page walks through every alternation, in the order you will most often need it, and shows you exactly which slots in the paradigm are affected.

The underlying logic: why the alternations exist

French orthography is a record of pronunciation, frozen in spelling. Three things have to be preserved when you write a verb:

1. The sound of the stem-final consonant — c must stay soft before e/i/y and hard before a/o/u; g must stay soft before e/i/y and hard before a/o/u. To keep c soft before a/o, French writes ç. To keep g soft before a/o, French inserts -e- (giving -ge-).
2. The shape of the stem vowel — when a verb has a silent -e- or an é in the syllable before the ending, that vowel "opens" to è whenever the next syllable contains a silent e (the -e, -es, -ent endings). Hence acheter → j'achète, espérer → j'espère.
3. The glide — y between two pronounced vowels turns into i when the following vowel becomes silent. So employer → j'emploie.

In the subjonctif présent, the endings are -e, -es, -e, -ions, -iez, -ent for all verbs (except avoir and être). Four of these endings — -e, -es, -e, -ent — contain the silent e that triggers all three classes of alternation. The two remaining endings — -ions and -iez — contain -i-, which itself is a vowel and which will conspire with stem-final -i to produce the -iions / -iiez of étudier.

So the strategy for the rest of this page is: walk through each verb class, identify which slots in the subjonctif paradigm get the -e endings (and therefore behave like the indicative) and which slots get the -ions / -iez endings (and therefore behave like the imparfait). Once you see the pattern, you stop having to memorize and start being able to predict.

-cer verbs: commencer, placer, lancer, prononcer

The c → ç alternation kicks in whenever c is followed by a, o, or u and you want to keep the soft sound (/s/). In the subjonctif, all six endings begin with e or i — both of which are "soft" vowels — so the cedilla never appears in the subjonctif présent of a -cer verb.

Compare with the indicative, where the cedilla does appear in nous commençons (because the ending -ons starts with o). The subjonctif has the milder ending -ions, so no cedilla is needed.

The cedilla does return in the subjonctif imparfait (the literary tense): que je commençasse, que tu commençasses. There the endings -asse, -asses, -ât contain a, so the c would harden without the cedilla. You will only meet these forms in 19th-century novels.

-ger verbs: manger, changer, voyager, partager

The -ger group works on the same principle. G stays soft before e/i/y and hardens before a/o/u. To keep g soft before a/o, French inserts an -e- (giving -ge-). In the subjonctif présent, none of the endings begin with a, o, or u — they begin with e or i — so the inserted -e- never appears in the subjonctif présent of a -ger verb.

The contrast with the indicative is once again that nous mangeons needs the -e- (the ending begins with o), but que nous mangions does not (the ending begins with i). This is the cleanest illustration of the principle: spelling changes follow the next vowel, and the subjonctif's next vowels are friendlier than the indicative's.

As with -cer verbs, the inserted -e- reappears in the subjonctif imparfait: que je mangeasse, que tu mangeasses. Recognition only.

-ier verbs: the famous double-i — étudier, crier, prier, oublier

This is the alternation that catches everyone, because the result genuinely looks wrong. Verbs whose stem ends in -i (étudier, crier, prier, oublier, plier, rire-style stems) produce a nous and vous form with a doubled -ii- in the subjonctif présent — and in the imparfait indicative, for the same reason.

The mechanics are simple: the stem of étudier is étudi-. Add the subjonctif endings -ions and -iez: you get étudi- + -ions = étudiions, étudi- + -iez = étudiiez. Both vowels are pronounced — the first i belongs to the stem, the second to the ending — so they are both written.

The same double-i pops up in the imparfait indicative: nous étudiions (we used to study), vous criiez (you used to shout). In fact, the subjonctif présent and the imparfait indicative are identical in the nous and vous forms for almost every regular verb — only the surrounding clause and the trigger word tell you which mood is meant.

The double-i feels unnatural to write because the eye keeps wanting to delete one of them. Train yourself to type it consciously the first dozen times; after that the muscle memory locks in. A useful sanity check: if the nous form of the present indicative is nous étudions (one i), then the subjonctif must have one more i — que nous étudiions (two i*s). The pattern is: indicative has the -ions of the ending; subjonctif has the -i- of the stem *plus the -ions of the ending.

-yer verbs: employer, envoyer, essayer, payer, nettoyer

The -yer group has the y → i alternation. Whenever the ending begins with a silent -e- (i.e., -e, -es, -ent — but not -ions or -iez), the y of the stem turns into i. The same rule operates in the subjonctif présent: que j'emploie (silent ending — y becomes i) but que nous employions (the -i- of the ending is pronounced — y stays as y).

A subtlety: for -ayer verbs (payer, essayer, balayer), both forms are accepted — que je paie and que je paye, que tu essaies and que tu essayes. Modern usage strongly prefers the -i- forms (paie, essaie); the -y- forms feel old-fashioned. For -oyer and -uyer verbs (employer, nettoyer, appuyer), the y → i change is obligatory: there is no que j'employe — only que j'emploie.

The envoyer paradigm is also worth noting because envoyer has an irregular futur stem (j'enverrai), but its subjonctif is not one of those exceptions: it follows the regular -yer alternation, exactly as you would expect.

-e_er verbs (silent e → è): acheter, lever, peser, mener, promener

Verbs with a silent -e- in the syllable before the ending — acheter, lever, peser, mener, promener, amener, emmener, enlever — open that e to è whenever the next syllable contains a silent -e-. This applies to four of the six subjonctif endings (-e, -es, -e, -ent) and does not apply to -ions and -iez, where the -i- is pronounced and the stem e therefore stays silent.

Notice the asymmetry: que j'achète (with grave accent — è), que nous achetions (no accent — e). This is the same boot-shaped pattern (the je / tu / il / ils forms are accented; the nous / vous forms are not) that you saw in the present indicative.

A small lexical exception: appeler and jeter (and a few others) double the consonant instead of using è — que j'appelle, que je jette, but que nous appelions, que nous jetions. The doubled consonant has the same phonetic effect as the è: it forces the preceding vowel to be pronounced as /ɛ/.

-é_er verbs (é → è): espérer, préférer, céder, répéter, régler

Verbs with é in the syllable before the ending — espérer, préférer, céder, répéter, régler, protéger, suggérer, posséder — open that é to è in exactly the same slots: the four endings with silent e (-e, -es, -e, -ent), and not in -ions / -iez.

A note on the 1990 spelling reform: the Académie now permits (but does not require) the è in nous / vous forms as well — nous préfèrions, vous préfèriez. In practice almost no one writes these reformed spellings, and most style guides still recommend the traditional préférions with é. Stick with the traditional pattern unless your editor tells you otherwise.

A more important point: although espérer que takes the indicative in the affirmative (j'espère qu'il viendra — see the overview page), it absolutely takes the subjunctive when negated or questioned: je n'espère pas qu'il vienne. So you do still need the subjunctive paradigm of espérer; you just don't need it in the contexts where you would in Spanish.

A summary table: which alternations apply where

The pattern is consistent enough to put into a single decision table.

The takeaway: the -cer and -ger alternations are dormant in the subjonctif présent (they reappear in the literary subjonctif imparfait). The -ier alternation is the showcase one: it gives you double-i in nous / vous. The -yer, -e_er, -é_er, and -eler / -eter alternations all follow the boot-shaped pattern: accent in the four "silent-ending" slots, no accent in nous / vous.

A pronunciation note

The nous / vous forms of the subjonctif are pronounced exactly the same as the corresponding imparfait indicative forms — que nous étudiions sounds identical to nous étudiions (we used to study). The double -ii- of -ier verbs is not pronounced as a long /ii/; it is pronounced as a single /j/ glide between two vowels — /e.ty.djjɔ̃/ approximated as "eh-too-dyon," same as the imparfait. The doubled letter is a written convention, not a phonetic distinction.

This is one of the reasons listening alone will not save you: the subjonctif imparfait of commencer (literary: que je commençasse) is one of the few cases where pronunciation distinguishes the subjonctif from the imparfait indicative. For everyday production, the only place the spelling change really matters is in writing.

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: Forgetting the double -i- in nous / vous of -ier verbs.

Mistake 2: Writing the cedilla in que nous commencions.

Mistake 3: Writing -geons instead of -gions in the subjonctif of -ger verbs.

Mistake 4: Putting the grave accent on the nous / vous form of préférer / acheter.

Mistake 5: Treating -yer verbs as fully irregular and writing que j'employe.

Key takeaways

• The subjonctif présent inherits all the spelling alternations of the present indicative, but applied to a slightly different set of endings.
• -cer and -ger verbs do not show their alternation in the subjonctif présent (the endings start with e/i, not a/o).
• -ier verbs produce a double-i in nous étudiions, vous étudiiez — the most common spelling trap on this page.
• -yer, -e_er, -é_er, and -eler / -eter verbs follow the boot pattern: spelling change in je/tu/il/ils forms, no change in nous/vous.
• The nous / vous forms of the subjonctif are always identical to the nous / vous forms of the imparfait indicative — so if you know the imparfait, you already know the subjonctif's hardest forms.