French 17 - Participles, Gerunds, and the Future is Now

Note: For a better handle on future tense, check out this site. 

Present Participle

Formed by taking the present indicative nous form of a verb and switching the -ons ending to -ant.

The verbs être, avoir, and savoir have irregular present participles: étant, ayant, and sachant, respectively.

Although English also has present participles, they're used differently and more often than their French counterparts, so it would be wise to avoid trying to make comparisons between the two languages here. In particular, the French present participle cannot be used after another verb, including the auxiliary être.

The French present participle can be used as an adjective; a noun; a verb; or a gerund (when combined with the preposition en).

PRESENT PARTICIPLES AS ADJECTIVES OR NOUNS

Present participles can be used as adjectives that agree with the noun they describe.

Many nouns are derived from the present participle of a verb.
étudier — to study ⇒ un étudiant/une étudiante — a student
enseigner — to teach ⇒ un enseignant/une enseignante — a teacher
gagner — to win ⇒ un gagnant/une gagnante — a winner

PRESENT PARTICIPLES AS VERBS

Present participles are invariable when used as verbs. When used as a simple verb, the present participle expresses a state or action that is simultaneous with and performed by the same subject as the main verb.

Past participles and present participles can be combined in two ways: the perfect participle and the passive voice.

Perfect Participle

The perfect participle indicates that one action was completed before another. In this compound tense, a past participle follows the present participle of its usual auxiliary—étant for être verbs and ayant for avoir verbs. This is basically a present participle version of the passé composé.

Remember that all compound tenses (including the perfect participle and the passé composé) follow the same agreement rules.

Passive Voice

When used in the passive voice, the past participle always follows a form of the passive marker être. In the present tense, this form will be étant.

In the past tense, être usually takes its perfect participle form, which is ayant été.

GERUNDS

Adding en before a present participle creates a gerund (gérondif) that can describe how one action is related to another. They might be related by time, condition, manner, or cause.

Time: Elle est tombée en faisant ses exercices. — She fell while doing her exercises.
Condition: Tu peux réussir en faisant un effort. — You can succeed by making an effort.
Manner: Elle parle en articulant les mots. — She speaks by articulating the words.
Cause: En partant seule, elle a pris des risques. — By leaving alone, she took risks.

SIMPLE FUTURE TENSE

When to Use the Future Tenses

French has multiple future tenses, and just like in English, they’re used when referring to events that haven’t occurred yet – things that will take place anytime in l’avenir (the future). The indicative tense forms of the future tense are also sometimes used to express other things, such as:

1. Politeness: “Je vous demanderai de ne pas faire de bruit.” (I have to ask you to not make noise.)
2. Probability or hypothesis: “Il aura été retardé par le mauvais temps.” (It could have been delayed by the bad weather.)
3. Emotion: “Nous devrons tout supporter en silence.” (We must endure everything silently.) 

Of course, it expresses the future as well, and it can be simple to use.

Simple Future vs. Future Perfect: What’s the Difference?

The simple future tense (le futur simple) is the basic form of the future, and the English equivalent of “will + verb.” Here’s an example of how the simple future tense is used:

Ils mangeront dans l’avion. (They will eat on the plane.)

Note that in French, there is no translation for the often-used “will” in English. The future tense is one entity; more specifically, it is made of the entire verb plus an ending, depending on what subject is being used.

In the above case, ils refers to a group of people (“Il” meaning “he” and the extra “s” meaning “they,” referring to either a group of men or a group of men and women). Ils (and elles, which is used for groups of women) gets an ending of -ont at the end. For further explanation about what endings go with what subject, see the conjugation section below. 

The future perfect tense (le futur antérieur), on the other hand, expresses an act that will have happened in the future. Here’s an example of how the future perfect tense is used:

Demain, j’aurai déjà lu mon livre. (Tomorrow, I will have already read my book.)

See here how this tense is very specific. You know for a fact that you’ve set aside time to read the book tomorrow, and, therefore, it will be finished.

Oftentimes, these two tenses are used together:

Quand j’aurai déjeuné, je travaillerai. (After I’ve eaten, I will start working).

The first half of that sentence is in the future perfect tense, and expresses an action (eating) that you know will have to be completed before you are able to complete the next action in the future (working, expressed with the simple future tense).

Simple Future vs. Future Perfect: How to Conjugate

Here’s how to conjugate both tenses using the verb parler (to speak). One of my favorite tools for looking up irregular conjugations is Word Reference, as well as my book of “501 French Verbs”.

The below guidelines are for regular conjugations, so use the aforementioned tools for complete conjugating rules.

How to Conjugate the Simple Future Tense in French

Use the entire verb as the stem, adding “-ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont” at the end.

Je parlerai
Tu parleras
Il/Elle parlera
Nous parlerons
Vous parlerez
Ils/Elles parleront 

Other verbs that are conjugated like parler are regular –ir verbs, like finir (to finish).

Regular -re verbs also follow a pattern: simply remove the “e” from the ending of the infinitive and add your future endings. For example: for descendre (to descend, to go down), add the future endings to the stem descendr-, (je descendrai, etc.)

Conjugating être and avoir in the Simple Future Tense

Être (to be) and avoir (to have) are not only basic verbs in French, but are also helping verbs for the future perfect tense. They have irregular conjugations in the simple future tense, just as they’re irregular in the present tense. Since we’ll be using their simple future conjugations when we form the future perfect tense, here are their simple future tense conjugations for reference:

Avoir
J’aurai
Tu auras
Il/Elle aura
Nous aurons
Vous aurez
Ils/Elles auront

 Être

Je serai
Tu seras
Il/Elle sera
Nous serons
Vous serez
Ils/Elles seront

Notice that with irregular verbs, it’s only the stem that changes – the endings remain the same. For avoir, the stem is aur-, and for être, it’s ser-.

How to Conjugate the Future Perfect Tense in French

Channel your knowledge of the simple past tense, the French tense that uses either avoir or être as a stem with a past participle. A past participleindicates a past or completed action or time, and there is a specific participle for every verb in the French language.

To form the future perfect tense, first conjugate either avoir or être into the simple future tense. Then, add on the past participle of the main verb.

Formation of Future Perfect Tense: simple future (of main verb’s auxiliary, avoir or être) + past participle (of main verb)

How do you know which helping verb to use (avoir or être)? Well, each French verb either takes one or the other, so with time you’ll learn which verbs go with which helping verb.

For now, know that most verbs that use être are verbs of movement (although not all verbs of movement use être). Reflexive verbs such as s’habiller (to get dressed) also use être as their helping verb.

The best way to remember when starting out is to familiarize yourself with the main verbs that take être as its helping verb. When I was learning French, my French professors suggested the following mnemonic: DR. AND MRS. VANDERTRAMPP.

Devenir (to come from)
Revenir (to come back, to return)
&
Monter (to go up, climb)
Rester (to stay)
Sortir (to go out)

Venir (to come)
Aller (to go)
Naître (to be born)
Descendre (to come down)
Entrer (to enter)
Rentrer (to return)
Tomber (to fall)
Retourner (to return)
Arriver (to arrive, to come)
Mourir (to die)
Partir (to leave)
Passer (to pass [by])

This list is not exhaustive, but it covers the verbs that people use most often.

The rest of the time, verbs use avoir as their helping verb.

The verb parler takes avoir as its helping verb. So, to form the future perfect tense, we begin with the conjugated avoir (in simple future tense) and pair it with the past participle of parler. Since parler is regular, the participle is typical for a French -er verb: knock off the “r” and accent the “e.” For parler, we get parlé.

J’aurai parlé
Tu auras parlé
Il/Elle aura parlé
Nous aurons parlé
Vous aurez parlé
Ils/Elles auront parlé

For a full list of past participles, check out this chart.

The Near Future Tense: Using “Aller” to Express the Future

The near future tense (le futur proche) is used to express something that will be happening in the very near future, and is formed by conjugating the verb aller (to go) into the present tense and pairing it with the infinitive verb.

Formation of Near Future Tense: present tense of aller + infinitive (main verb)

Here’s a sample sentence in the near future tense:

     Je vais nager. (I am going to swim.)

See here that aller is conjugated in the present while nager stays in its infinitive form, unconjugated. You would say this if you were going swimming in the near future. 

If you were going to swim sometime further in the future, your sentence would look more like this:

     Je nagerai. (I will swim.)

This implies that you will swim sometime in the future. You can, of course, add words to be more specific, like la semaine prochaine (next week), demain (tomorrow) or l’été prochain (next summer).

The Present Tense as Future in French

In French, the future can also be expressed using the present tense. You’ll often see an exchange similar to the one below:

John: Je rentre chez moi bientôt. (I’m going home soon)
Molly: Ok, j’arrive dans cinq minutes. (I’ll be there in five minutes).

Notice here that no future tense is being used in the French. When you use a word that implies the future, like bientôt (soon), dans cinq minutes (in five minutes), l’an prochain (next year) or demain (tomorrow), you’re already expressing the future within the sentence.

Therefore, in spoken French, the future is sometimes completely left off.