French guides · Verb tables + audio
Mettre: to put — clothes, time, and getting started.
Mettre means “to put”, and like most very common verbs it has quietly taken on several other jobs. It is how you put clothes on, how you say how long something takes, and — as se mettre à — how you say you started doing something. The conjugation itself has exactly one thing to watch: where the second t goes.
Présent — one t or two
The singular takes a single t — mets, mets, met — and the plural restores the double: mettons, mettez, mettent. It is the same shape as prendre losing its d, and for the same reason: the singular endings are silent, so the consonant before them is simplified.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je mets | I put | |
| tu mets | you put | |
| il / elle met | he / she puts | |
| nous mettons | we put | |
| vous mettez | you put | |
| ils / elles mettent | they put |
All three singular forms are “meh”. Mettent is “met”, with an audible t. That is the only spoken clue to singular versus plural — and it is the same clue as in il part / ils partent.
Even though the t simplifies, the je and tu forms still end in s: je mets, not je met. Only il / elle gets the bare met.
What French puts
The literal sense is only the start. These are all everyday:
| French | Literally | Means |
|---|---|---|
| je mets un pull | I put a jumper | I put a jumper on |
| ça met deux heures | that puts two hours | it takes two hours |
| mettre la table | to put the table | to lay the table |
| mettre la musique | to put the music | to put music on |
| se mettre à travailler | to put oneself to work | to start working |
| mettre au courant | to put in the current | to bring up to speed |
French does not need a second word: je mets mes chaussures is “I put my shoes on”. Adding anything to translate the “on” — je mets sur — breaks the sentence. To say you are wearing them rather than putting them on, switch to porter.
Mettre is used when a person or thing does the taking: je mets vingt minutes pour venir. Prendre is used impersonally: ça prend vingt minutes. Both are correct; they just start the sentence differently.
Passé composé — mis
With avoir, participle mis — short, irregular, and shared by the family: promis, permis, admis, remis. The s is silent.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| j’ai mis | I put / have put | |
| tu as mis | you put / have put | |
| il / elle a mis | he / she put / have put | |
| nous avons mis | we put / have put | |
| vous avez mis | you put / have put | |
| ils / elles ont mis | they put / have put |
Imparfait — regular
From mettons, so the double t runs through the whole tense: je mettais.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je mettais | I used to put / was putting | |
| tu mettais | you used to put / was putting | |
| il / elle mettait | he / she used to put / was putting | |
| nous mettions | we used to put / was putting | |
| vous mettiez | you used to put / was putting | |
| ils / elles mettaient | they used to put / was putting |
Futur and conditionnel — mettr-
The infinitive minus its final e, double t intact: je mettrai. Careful in writing — there are now two ts and one r, which is easy to get backwards.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je mettrai | I will put | |
| tu mettras | you will put | |
| il / elle mettra | he / she will put | |
| nous mettrons | we will put | |
| vous mettrez | you will put | |
| ils / elles mettront | they will put |
Conditionnel — would put
Je mettrais. Useful for suggestions about arrangements: je mettrais le canapé ici.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je mettrais | I would put | |
| tu mettrais | you would put | |
| il / elle mettrait | he / she would put | |
| nous mettrions | we would put | |
| vous mettriez | you would put | |
| ils / elles mettraient | they would put |
Subjonctif — mette
Regular from the plural stem, double t throughout, no boot.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je mette | (that) I put | |
| tu mettes | (that) you put | |
| il / elle mette | (that) he / she put | |
| nous mettions | (that) we put | |
| vous mettiez | (that) you put | |
| ils / elles mettent | (that) they put |
Impératif — put it there
Mets !, mettez ! — keeping the s on the tu form, because this is an -re verb rather than an -er one. Mets-toi là is “sit yourself there”.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| mets ! | put! (to one person you know) | |
| mettons ! | let’s put! | |
| mettez ! | put! (formal, or to a group) |
Plus-que-parfait — had put
J’avais mis — very often about where something ended up: j’avais mis mes clés sur la table.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| j’avais mis | I had put | |
| tu avais mis | you had put | |
| il / elle avait mis | he / she had put | |
| nous avions mis | we had put | |
| vous aviez mis | you had put | |
| ils / elles avaient mis | they had put |
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Quick answers
Mettre, answered.
The questions that come up while you are learning the table.