Conjugating the French Verb Rire (to Laugh)

Conjugating the French Verb Rire (to Laugh) In French, the verb  rire  means to laugh. Its a fun and simple word and, hopefully, youll have plenty of opportunities to use it while studying French. The key to using  rire  properly in sentences is learning the most common conjugations so you can use it in the present, past, and future tenses. This lesson will show you how thats done. The Basic Conjugations of  Rire Rire may be a short word, but its also an irregular verb. This means that it does not follow the same pattern for the infinitive endings as most other French verbs. However, it is similar to sourire (to smile), so you can study the two together to make each a little easier. To start any conjugation, we need to identify the verb stem. In this case, that is simply   ri-. With that, youll add the various endings that match the subject pronoun as well as the tense of the sentence. For example, I am laughing is  je ris  and we laughed is  nous riions. Present Future Imperfect je ris rirai riais tu ris riras riais il rit rira riait nous rions rirons riions vous riez rirez riiez ils rient riront riaient The Present Participle of Rire In French, the  present participle  is most often formed by adding -ant  to the verb stem. Rire  follows this rule to form  riant. Rire  in the Past Tense Rather than use the imperfect to indicate the past tense of laughed, you can use the passà © composà ©. To form it, you will need the auxiliary verb avoir and the very short past participle ri. It is rather easy to construct this common form of the past tense. For example, I laughed is  jai ri  and we were laughing is  nous avons ri. Notice how  avoir  is the only word that needs to be conjugated and that it is in the present tense. This is because the past participle indicates that the action has already happened. More Simple Conjugations of Rire The verb conjugations above are most common, but you may need to know more forms of  rire  as you become more fluent in French. For instance, if theres a doubt as to whether someone is laughing, you can use the subjunctive verb mood. In a similar fashion, if someone wont laugh unless something else happens, use the conditional verb mood. There may also be times when youll encounter either the passà © simple  or  the imperfect subjunctive. These are, however, most often found in formal French, particularly literature. Subjunctive Conditional Pass Simple Imperfect Subjunctive je rie rirais ris risse tu ries rirais ris risses il rie rirait rit rt nous riions ririons rmes rissions vous riiez ririez rtes rissiez ils rient riraient rirent rissent When you wish to use  rire  in short commands or requests theres no need to include the subject pronoun. This is called  the imperative verb mood  and rather than saying  tu ris, you can simplify it to  ris. Imperative (tu) ris (nous) rions (vous) riez