Learn the French Conjugations for "Rougir" (to Blush)

A Lesson That Teaches You to Say "She Is Blushing"

Embarrassed Woman Laughing
Embarrassed Woman Laughing. Getty Images/Jose Luis Pelaez Inc

A very fun verb, the French rougir means "to blush" or "to turn red." It's used most often when you're describing someone's embarrassment and in order to say "he blushed" or "she is blushing," you will need a conjugation of the verb. That is the subject of this French lesson.

The Basic Conjugations of Rougir

Rougir is a regular -ir verb and it follows a very common conjugation pattern used in the French language. This category includes many verbs, such as reunir (to reunite) and remplir (to fill). If you have studied a few of these, you can apply the endings you already know to this conjugation.

The indicative mood is the best place to begin. Here you will find the basic present, future, and imperfect past tenses which you will use most often in conversation. As with all French conjugations, you need to memorize a new form of the verb for every subject pronoun within each tense.

Beginning with the verb stem (roug-), use the chart to study which ending is required for each circumstance. As an example, "I am blushing" is je rougis and "we turned red" is nous rougissions.

Present Future Imperfect
je rougis rougirai rougissais
tu rougis rougiras rougissais
il rougit rougira rougissait
nous rougissons rougirons rougissions
vous rougissez rougirez rougissiez
ils rougissent rougiront rougissaient

The Present Participle of Rougir

Conjugating a regular -ir verb into its present participle is as simple as adding -issant to the stem. For rougir, that produces the word rougissant.

Rougir in the Compound Past Tense

In French, you may use either the imperfect or the passé composé to express the past tense "blushed." To form the latter, begin with the appropriate present tense conjugate of the auxiliary verb avoir, then add the past participle rougi. This results in phrases such as j'ai rougi (I blushed) and nous avons rougi (we blushed).

More Simple Conjugations of Rougir

At times, you may not know if someone is really going to blush or not and that's when the subjunctive is used. In another circumstance, someone may not blush unless something else happens (they receive a compliment, for instance). That's when you can use the conditional.

Found almost exclusively in French literature, you may not need the passé simple and the imperfect subjunctive often. However, they are good to know.

Subjunctive Conditional Passé simple Imperfect subjunctive
je rougisse rougirais rougis rougisse
tu rougisses rougirais rougis rougisses
il rougisse rougirait rougit rougît
nous rougissions rougirions rougîmes rougissions
vous rougissiez rougiriez rougîtes rougissiez
ils rougissent rougiraient rougirent rougissent

The French imperative may not be as useful for a verb like rougir as it is for other actions, but you may find times to use it. Just keep in mind that this is the one instance when it's okay to drop the subject pronoun. That means tu rougis becomes rougis.

Imperative
(tu) rougis
(nous) rougissons
(vous) rougissez
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Team, ThoughtCo. "Learn the French Conjugations for "Rougir" (to Blush)." ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/rougir-to-blush-or-turn-red-1370863. Team, ThoughtCo. (2021, December 6). Learn the French Conjugations for "Rougir" (to Blush). Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/rougir-to-blush-or-turn-red-1370863 Team, ThoughtCo. "Learn the French Conjugations for "Rougir" (to Blush)." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/rougir-to-blush-or-turn-red-1370863 (accessed March 28, 2024).