How to Conjugate "Suggérer" (to Suggest) in French

The French verb suggérer looks very similar to its English meaning, "to suggest." While that makes it easier to remember, you'll still need to conjugate it to say things such as "we suggested" and "I am suggesting." Don't worry, a quick lesson will help you memorize the essential forms of suggérer you need.

The Basic Conjugations of Suggérer

Suggérer is a stem-changing verb and that does complicate this conjugation a bit. In the indicative mood, which includes the basic present, future, and imperfect past tenses, you'll notice that the accented é changes in some forms to è. Also, in the future tense, you have the option of either accent.

Using the chart, you can study these conjugations by finding the subject pronoun and the corresponding tense required for your sentence. As an example, je suggére means "I am suggesting" while nous suggérions means "we suggested." 

The Present Participle of Suggérer

When you add -ant to the radical of suggérer, you form the present participle suggérant. This can be used as a verb, of course, though it also has the potential to become a noun or adjective in some circumstances.

Suggérer in the Compound Past Tense

Passé composé is the French compound past tense. It combines the past participle suggéré with the auxiliary verb avoir. 

Begin by conjugating avoir into the present tense to match the subject, then add the past participle. For example, "I suggested" is j'ai suggéré and "we suggested" is nous avons suggéré.

More Simple Conjugations of Suggérer

When you need to question whether the act of suggesting will happen, you can use the subjunctive. If the action is dependent on certain conditions, the conditional may be used. The literary tenses of the passé simple and the imperfect subjunctive are typically reserved for written French, though they are good to know as well.

There may also be times when you'll want to use suggérer in the French imperative. When you do, it's acceptable to skip the subject pronoun and simply say suggérons.