How to Conjugate Emprunter, to Borrow

When you want to say to borrow in French, turn to the verb  emprunter. Verb conjugation is required to imply when the borrowing happens, whether that is in the past, present, or future tense. The good news is that  emprunter  is a relatively straightforward conjugation. Conjugating the French Verb  Emprunter Many French verbs follow common verb conjugation patterns. This allows you to apply what you may have learned with  depenser  (to spend) or  dà ©barrasser  (to get rid of) to a verb like  emprunter. Each of these is  a  regular -ER verb, the most common conjugation youll find in French. Changing  emprunter  to the present, future, or imperfect past tense is quite simple. First, recognize the verb stem  emprunt-, then add the appropriate ending for the subject pronoun and tense. For instance, I borrow is jemprunte in French, while we will borrow is nous emprunterons. Subject Present Future Imperfect j' emprunte emprunterai empruntais tu empruntes emprunteras empruntais il emprunte empruntera empruntait nous empruntons emprunterons empruntions vous empruntez emprunterez empruntiez ils empruntent emprunteront empruntaient Present Participle Adding -ant  to the verb stem of  emprunter  gives you the  present participle  empruntant. It is a verb, of course, though youll also find it useful as an adjective, gerund, or noun at times. Past Participle and Passà © Composà © Another form of the past tense beyond the imperfect is the  passà © composà ©Ã‚  and it requires a quick phrase construction. It begins with the subject pronoun, then a conjugate of  avoir, the most common  auxiliary,  or helping, verb.  To this, the  past participle  empruntà ©Ã‚  is added. It all comes together quickly: I borrowed becomes jai empruntà © and we borrowed transforms into nous avons empruntà ©. More Simple  Conjugations Among these simple conjugations of  emprunter, French students should memorize and practice those above first. Then, you can dive into some special uses of the verb. For instance, with a little study, youll know these passà © simple and imperfect subjunctive forms of  embrasser  when you read them. In more frequent use, the subjunctive verb mood implies uncertainty to the verb and the conditional form says that the action will only happen  if  something else does. Subject Subjunctive Conditional Passà © Simple Imperfect Subjunctive j' emprunte emprunterais empruntai empruntasse tu empruntes emprunterais empruntas empruntasse il emprunte emprunterait emprunta empruntà ¢t nous empruntions emprunterions empruntà ¢mes empruntassions vous empruntiez emprunteriez empruntà ¢tes empruntassiez ils empruntent emprunteraient empruntà ¨rent empruntassent The imperative verb form is just as useful and even easier to remember. The key here is that you can drop the subject pronoun: use emprunte rather than tu emprunte. Imperative (tu) emprunte (nous) empruntons (vous) empruntez