Learn How to Conjugate "Revoir" (to See Again) in French

A French Lesson in an Irregular Verb Conjugation

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When trying to remember that the French revoir means "to see again" or "to meet again," think of it as "reviewing" something or someone. It's a simple memory trick, but it won't help you learn the conjugations of the verb. Instead, you'll have to do some studying so you can form its present, past, or future tenses and this lesson will help you out.

The Basic Conjugations of Revoir

Revoir is an irregular verb, which means that it does not follow a common conjugation pattern. However, it is a form of the common verb voir, which means "to see." It, along with other variants like prévoir (to foresee), use the same conjugations. Studying these as a group will make each much easier to memorize.

Using the chart, you can find the basic conjugations for the indicative verb mood, which includes the present, future, and imperfect past tenses. These are the forms of revoir that you'll use most often. All you need to do is match the subject pronoun with the tense. For instance, "I am seeing again" is je revois and "we will see again" is nous reverrons.

Present Future Imperfect
je revois reverrai revoyais
tu revois reverras revoyais
il revoit reverra revoyait
nous revoyons reverrons revoyions
vous revoyez reverrez revoyiez
ils revoient reverront revoyaient

The Present Participle of Revoir

The present participle of revoir is revoyant. It is a verb, of course, though there are some instances when it may also act as a noun or adjective.

Revoir in the Compound Past Tense

For the past tense, you can use the passé composé. This is a French compound that pairs an auxiliary verb with the past participle revu. To form it, conjugate avoir into the present tense, then add revu. This leaves you with phrases such as j'ai revu for "I saw again" and nous avons revu for "we saw again."

More Simple Conjugations of Revoir

There are a few more basic conjugations you may need in some conversations. The subjunctive is used when the act is in some way questionable. The conditional is for those times when conditions apply to the act. You should encounter the passé simple and the imperfect subjunctive only in written French as these are literary tenses.

Subjunctive Conditional Passé Simple Imperfect Subjunctive
je revoie reverrais revis revisse
tu revoies reverrais revis revisses
il revoie reverrait revit revît
nous revoyions reverrions revîmes revissions
vous revoyiez reverriez revîtes revissiez
ils revoient reverraient revirent revissent

The French imperative is the one time when it's okay to leave the subject pronoun out. For this, you can shorten tu revois to revois.

Imperative
(tu) revois
(nous) revoyons
(vous) revoyez
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Team, ThoughtCo. "Learn How to Conjugate "Revoir" (to See Again) in French." ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/revoir-to-see-again-1370856. Team, ThoughtCo. (2021, December 6). Learn How to Conjugate "Revoir" (to See Again) in French. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/revoir-to-see-again-1370856 Team, ThoughtCo. "Learn How to Conjugate "Revoir" (to See Again) in French." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/revoir-to-see-again-1370856 (accessed May 1, 2024).