Learn the Simple Conjugates of "Remplir" (to Fill)

The French verb remplir means "to fill." When trying to remember it, it may help to think of "replenish," which sound similar. Yet, when you want to use it in the present, past, or future tense to mean things like "filled" or "will fill," you'll also need to know its conjugations. This lesson will introduce you to the simplest forms you'll need for your French conversations.

The Basic Conjugations of Remplir

Remplir is a regular -ir verb, so it does use a rather common conjugation pattern found in French verbs. The endings you find here are the same as you would use for words like bénir (to bless) and finir (to finish). If you study a few of these together, each is just a little easier to remember.

The first step is to identify the radical or stem of the verb. For remplir, that is rempl-. To this, different endings are added to fit both the sentence's subject pronoun and its tense. This gives us, for example, je remplis for "I am filling" and nous remplirons for "we will fill." Practicing these whenever you see someone fill something will help you commit them to memory.

Present Future Imperfect
je remplis remplirai remplissais
tu remplis rempliras remplissais
il remplit remplira remplissait
nous remplissons remplirons remplissions
vous remplissez remplirez remplissiez
ils remplissent rempliront remplissaient

The Present Participle of Remplir

Useful as a verb as well as a noun or adjective in some instances, the present participle of remplir is an easy conjugation. Simply add -issant to the radical and you have remplissant.

Remplir in the Compound Past Tense

In French, the compound past tense is called the passé composé. It's also easy to form and you'll begin with the present tense conjugate of the auxiliary verb avoir appropriate to the subject. All that's left is adding the past participle rempli, which implies that the act of filling happened in the past. This leaves us with things like j'ai rempli for "I filled" and nous avons rempli for "we filled."

More Simple Conjugations of Remplir

To question the certainty of whether something is filled or not, you'll use the subjunctive form of remplir. Similarly, if it will only happen if something else does, the conditional can be used. You'll encounter the passé simple and the imperfect subjunctive only in written French as these are literary tenses.

Subjunctive Conditional Passé Simple Imperfect Subjunctive
je remplisse remplirais remplis remplisse
tu remplisses remplirais remplis remplisses
il remplisse remplirait remplit remplît
nous remplissions remplirions remplîmes remplissions
vous remplissiez rempliriez remplîtes remplissiez
ils remplissent rempliraient remplirent remplissent

The French imperative is used for short and very direct statements and the subject pronoun is not required. All you need to say is remplis rather than tu remplis.

Imperative
(tu) remplis
(nous) remplissons
(vous) remplissez
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Team, ThoughtCo. "Learn the Simple Conjugates of "Remplir" (to Fill)." ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/remplir-to-fill-1370791. Team, ThoughtCo. (2021, December 6). Learn the Simple Conjugates of "Remplir" (to Fill). Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/remplir-to-fill-1370791 Team, ThoughtCo. "Learn the Simple Conjugates of "Remplir" (to Fill)." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/remplir-to-fill-1370791 (accessed March 28, 2024).