How to Conjugate "Inviter" (to Invite) in French

As you might suspect, inviter means "to invite" in French. That's simple enough and very easy to remember. The next trick is to memorize all of the verb's conjugations. By doing so, you'll be able to complete sentences with "invited" and "inviting," among many other simple forms of the verb.

Conjugating the French Verb Inviter

French verbs are more complicated to conjugate than they are in English. That's because we need to take into account both the desired tense as well as the subject pronoun. That means you have quite a few words to remember.

The good news is that inviter is a regular -ER verb and it uses the rules of a very familiar verb conjugation pattern. French students who have studied words like dessiner (to draw) and donner (to give), will recognize the endings used here.

As with all conjugations, begin by identifying the verb stem, invit-. From there, it's as simple finding the appropriate ending that matches the subject pronoun and the tense. For example, "I am inviting" in the simplest form is "j'invite" and "we will invite" is "nous inviterons."

Subject	Present	Future	Imperfect
j'	invite	inviterai	invitais
tu	invites	inviteras	invitais
il	invite	invitera	invitait
nous	invitons	inviterons	invitions
vous	invitez	inviterez	invitiez
ils	invitent	inviteront	invitaient

The Present Participle of Inviter

The present participle of inviter is invitant. You'll notice that this was as simple as adding -ant to the verb stem. It's a verb, of course, but in some contexts, it changes to an adjective, gerund, or noun.

The Past Participle and Passé Composé

The passé composé is a common way to express the past tense "invited" in French. This is easy to construct, just begin with a conjugate of the auxiliary verb avoir. Then, add the past participle invité. It comes together as "j'ai invité" for "I invited" and "nous avons invité" for "we invited."

More Simple Inviter Conjugations to Know

The forms of inviter above should be your top priority for memorization. As you use French more often, you'll encounter other forms of the verb as well.

The subjunctive and conditional are verb moods and each implies that the verb's action is not guaranteed. When reading French, you'll find either the passé simple or the imperfect subjunctive forms.

Subject	Subjunctive	Conditional	Passé Simple	Imperfect Subjunctive
j'	invite	inviterais	invitai	invitasse
tu	invites	inviterais	invitas	invitasses
il	invite	inviterait	invita	invitât
nous	invitions	inviterions	invitâmes	invitassions
vous	invitiez	inviteriez	invitâtes	invitassiez
ils	invitent	inviteraient	invitèrent	invitassent

The subject pronoun is required for all forms of inviter except the imperative. That's because these are very short statements, so we rely on the verb to tell us whom we're speaking of. In this case, simplify "tu invite" down to "invite."

	Imperative
(tu)	invite
(nous)	invitons
(vous)	invitez