How to Conjugate 'Prévoir' (to Foresee; to Plan)

Simple Conjugations for the French Verb 'Prévoir'

The French verb prévoir has a few definitions, including "to foresee," "to provide" and "to plan." It is an irregular - ir verb, so you will need to memorize its atypical conjugation pattern in order to use it properly in conversation.

How to Conjugate the French Verb Prévoir

With regular -ir French verbs, you remove the infinitive ending to determine the stem, to which you'd add the ending associated with the subject pronoun and the tense you're using. However, that doesn't work with all verbs, hence the irregular verb. Pay close attention to the tables below, which show the simple conjugations for prévoir—the stem and endings can be quite different from those of regular -ir verbs. Other verbs that follow a similar conjugation pattern include entrevoirrevoir, and voir.

Present Future Imperfect Present participle
je prévois prévoirai prévoyais prévoyant
tu prévois prévoiras prévoyais
il prévoit prévoira prévoyait
nous prévoyons prévoirons prévoyions
vous prévoyez prévoirez prévoyiez
ils prévoient prévoiront prévoyaient
Subjunctive Conditional Passé simple Imperfect subjunctive
je prévoie prévoirais prévis prévisse
tu prévoies prévoirais prévis prévisses
il prévoie prévoirait prévit prévît
nous prévoyions prévoirions prévîmes prévissions
vous prévoyiez prévoiriez prévîtes prévissiez
ils prévoient prévoiraient prévirent prévissent
Imperative
(tu) prévois
(nous) prévoyons
(vous) prévoyez

How to Form the Past Tense of Prévoir

The passé simple is almost exclusively used as a literary tense. Therefore, to render verbs in the past tense, you use the passé composé, a compound tense. Prévoir requires the auxiliary verb avoir and the past participle prévu.

For example:

Elle a prévu les jeux pour la fête.
She planned the games for the party.

Nous avons prévu le divorce de nos amis.
We foresaw our friends' divorce.

Format
mla apa chicago
Your Citation
Team, ThoughtCo. "How to Conjugate 'Prévoir' (to Foresee; to Plan)." ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/prevoir-to-foresee-1370685. Team, ThoughtCo. (2021, December 6). How to Conjugate 'Prévoir' (to Foresee; to Plan). Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/prevoir-to-foresee-1370685 Team, ThoughtCo. "How to Conjugate 'Prévoir' (to Foresee; to Plan)." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/prevoir-to-foresee-1370685 (accessed April 20, 2024).