French guides · Verb tables + audio
Venir: to come — and the tense French doesn’t have.
Venir means “to come”, and it earns its place in the first dozen verbs for a reason that has nothing to do with coming anywhere. French has no separate tense for “I have just done something”. Instead it uses this verb: je viens de plus an infinitive. Learn the six présent forms and you have not learnt one verb — you have unlocked a whole tense.
Présent — two stems, not one
Venir does the thing a lot of common French verbs do: it uses one stem when the ending is stressed and another when it is not. Four forms take vien- and two take ven-, and the two that break ranks are — as almost always in French — nous and vous.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je viens | I come | |
| tu viens | you come | |
| il / elle vient | he / she comes | |
| nous venons | we come | |
| vous venez | you come | |
| ils / elles viennent | they come |
Write the six forms in a column and draw a line around the ones with vien-: viens, viens, vient at the top and viennent at the bottom, with venons and venez left outside. The shape is a boot, and dozens of French verbs are conjugated inside one.
Viens, viens and vient are one sound — the s and the t are both silent. Viennent is the one you can hear coming: the double n un-nasalises the vowel, so it is “vyen” rather than “vyañ”. That difference is how a listener knows whether one person is coming or several.
Venir de — the recent past
This is the section worth the visit. English has a tense for what has just happened — “I have just eaten”. French does not, and reaches for venir instead. Put venir in the présent, add de, then an infinitive:
| French | Literally | Means |
|---|---|---|
| je viens de manger | I come from to eat | I’ve just eaten |
| il vient de partir | he comes from to leave | he’s just left |
| nous venons d’arriver | we come from to arrive | we’ve just arrived |
| je viens de le voir | I come from to see him | I’ve just seen him |
The most common mistake is putting venir into the past, on the reasonable theory that you are talking about the past. You are not: je suis venu de manger is wrong and means nothing. The event is recent now, so the verb is présent. Put venir in the imparfait instead and you get the step further back — je venais de manger, “I had just eaten”.
It is the mirror image of aller + infinitive, which does the near future. Je vais manger — I’m about to eat. Je viens de manger — I’ve just eaten. Two everyday verbs covering the minutes either side of now.
Passé composé — with être, so it agrees
Venir is one of the movement verbs that build their past with être rather than avoir. That has a visible consequence English has no equivalent for: the participle agrees with the subject, the way an adjective does.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je suis venu(e) | I came / have come | |
| tu es venu(e) | you came / have come | |
| il / elle est venu(e) | he / she came / have come | |
| nous sommes venu(e)s | we came / have come | |
| vous êtes venu(e)(s) | you came / have come | |
| ils / elles sont venu(e)s | they came / have come |
A man writes je suis venu; a woman writes je suis venue. A group writes nous sommes venus, or venues if everyone in it is female. None of those endings is pronounced — this is a spelling rule, not a sound one — but it is marked in every exam and every email.
The participle is venu, which makes venir unusually kind: no new stem to learn, just the infinitive with its ending swapped.
Imparfait — the regular one
Built the standard way, with no surprises: take the nous form of the présent (venons), drop the -ons, and hang the imparfait endings off what is left. The vien- stem does not appear anywhere in this tense.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je venais | I used to come / was coming | |
| tu venais | you used to come / was coming | |
| il / elle venait | he / she used to come / was coming | |
| nous venions | we used to come / was coming | |
| vous veniez | you used to come / was coming | |
| ils / elles venaient | they used to come / was coming |
Futur and conditionnel — the doubled r
The futur stem is viendr- — the vien- stem with a d wedged in. It has to be learnt, but it pays twice over: the same stem builds the conditionnel.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je viendrai | I will come | |
| tu viendras | you will come | |
| il / elle viendra | he / she will come | |
| nous viendrons | we will come | |
| vous viendrez | you will come | |
| ils / elles viendront | they will come |
Tenir (to hold) conjugates identically throughout — je tiens, nous tenons, je tiendrai. So do all of venir’s own relatives: revenir (to come back), devenir (to become), se souvenir (to remember), prévenir (to warn). One table, seven verbs.
Conditionnel — would come
Same viendr- stem, the imparfait endings bolted on. This is the tense for invitations that leave room to say no: tu viendrais avec nous ? — “would you come with us?” — is gentler than asking outright.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je viendrais | I would come | |
| tu viendrais | you would come | |
| il / elle viendrait | he / she would come | |
| nous viendrions | we would come | |
| vous viendriez | you would come | |
| ils / elles viendraient | they would come |
Subjonctif — after il faut que
The boot is back, and in exactly the same place: vienne for the singular and ils, venions and veniez outside it. Il faut que tu viennes — “you need to come”.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je vienne | (that) I come | |
| tu viennes | (that) you come | |
| il / elle vienne | (that) he / she come | |
| nous venions | (that) we come | |
| vous veniez | (that) you come | |
| ils / elles viennent | (that) they come |
Impératif — come here
Straight from the présent, minus the pronouns. Viens ! to someone you know, venez ! to a group or a stranger. Both turn up constantly with a destination attached: viens ici, venez avec moi.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| viens ! | come! (to one person you know) | |
| venons ! | let’s come! | |
| venez ! | come! (formal, or to a group) |
Plus-que-parfait — had come
The imparfait of être plus the participle, still agreeing: j’étais venu, “I had come”. Use it for the thing that had already happened before the moment you are describing.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| j’étais venu(e) | I had come | |
| tu étais venu(e) | you had come | |
| il / elle était venu(e) | he / she had come | |
| nous étions venu(e)s | we had come | |
| vous étiez venu(e)(s) | you had come | |
| ils / elles étaient venu(e)s | they had come |
Hear it, then say it
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Quick answers
Venir, answered.
The questions that come up while you are learning the table.