French guides · Verb tables + audio
Voir: to see — which is not the same as to watch.
Voir means “to see”: what your eyes do without being asked. It is one of the handful of French verbs whose futur stem looks nothing like the infinitive — je verrai, not the voirai the pattern would predict. And it is half of a pair English collapses into one idea: voir is seeing, regarder is looking.
Présent — the y appears
Voi- in the singular and for ils; voy- for nous and vous. That y is just the i doing what French spelling makes it do between two vowels, and the same swap happens in croire and envoyer.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je vois | I see | |
| tu vois | you see | |
| il / elle voit | he / she sees | |
| nous voyons | we see | |
| vous voyez | you see | |
| ils / elles voient | they see |
Vois, vois, voit and voient are all pronounced identically — “vwa”. The -ent on the plural is silent like every other -ent, and unlike prendre or venir there is no doubled consonant to break the tie. Only the subject pronoun tells you how many people are seeing.
Voir or regarder?
The split is the same one English draws between “see” and “look at”, but French holds to it more strictly — and it applies to films and television, where English says “watch” and “see” almost interchangeably.
| French | Means | Because |
|---|---|---|
| je vois la mer | I can see the sea | it is simply in view |
| je regarde la mer | I’m looking at the sea | you chose to |
| j’ai vu ce film | I’ve seen that film | you have it in your memory |
| je regarde un film | I’m watching a film | you are doing it now |
| on se voit demain ? | shall we meet tomorrow? | seeing each other = meeting |
Je vois covers both “I see” and “I can see”. Adding pouvoir — je peux voir — is not wrong but says something narrower: that you are able to, that nothing is blocking your view. For ordinary “I can see it”, use the bare présent.
Passé composé — vu
With avoir, participle vu — one syllable. Tu as vu ? on its own is an everyday “did you see that?”.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| j’ai vu | I saw / have seen | |
| tu as vu | you saw / have seen | |
| il / elle a vu | he / she saw / have seen | |
| nous avons vu | we saw / have seen | |
| vous avez vu | you saw / have seen | |
| ils / elles ont vu | they saw / have seen |
Imparfait — and the ii trap
Built from voyons, which produces a spelling that looks like a typo and is not.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je voyais | I used to see / could see | |
| tu voyais | you used to see / could see | |
| il / elle voyait | he / she used to see / could see | |
| nous voyions | we used to see / could see | |
| vous voyiez | you used to see / could see | |
| ils / elles voyaient | they used to see / could see |
The stem ends in y and the imparfait ending for nous begins with i, so both survive: voyions, voyiez. It sounds almost identical to the présent voyons, and dropping the i is one of the most common written mistakes with this verb — including among native speakers.
Futur and conditionnel — verr-
The one thing on this page you have to memorise. The futur stem is verr-: je verrai, tu verras, on verra. That last one is a conversational staple — “we’ll see” — and is worth learning as a fixed phrase before you learn the tense.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je verrai | I will see | |
| tu verras | you will see | |
| il / elle verra | he / she will see | |
| nous verrons | we will see | |
| vous verrez | you will see | |
| ils / elles verront | they will see |
Revoir follows it exactly (je reverrai), but prévoir does not — it goes back to being regular in the futur, je prévoirai. Two verbs off the same root, two different futurs.
Conditionnel — would see
Same verr- stem: je verrais. Also the polite frame for a suggestion — je verrais bien…, “I could see us…”.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je verrais | I would see | |
| tu verrais | you would see | |
| il / elle verrait | he / she would see | |
| nous verrions | we would see | |
| vous verriez | you would see | |
| ils / elles verraient | they would see |
Subjonctif — voie
The boot again, and the y back for nous and vous. Il faut que je voie un médecin — and note it is voie, not vois.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| je voie | (that) I see | |
| tu voies | (that) you see | |
| il / elle voie | (that) he / she see | |
| nous voyions | (that) we see | |
| vous voyiez | (that) you see | |
| ils / elles voient | (that) they see |
Impératif — look here
Vois is rare on its own, but voyons is very common as an interjection — roughly “come on now” or “let’s see” — and voyez turns up in explanations: voyez-vous, “you see”.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| vois ! | see! (to one person you know) | |
| voyons ! | let’s see! | |
| voyez ! | see! (formal, or to a group) |
Plus-que-parfait — had seen
Je l’avais vu — and here the participle does agree, because the object comes before the verb: je l’avais vue if the thing seen was feminine.
| French | English | Listen |
|---|---|---|
| j’avais vu | I had seen | |
| tu avais vu | you had seen | |
| il / elle avait vu | he / she had seen | |
| nous avions vu | we had seen | |
| vous aviez vu | you had seen | |
| ils / elles avaient vu | they had seen |
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Quick answers
Voir, answered.
The questions that come up while you are learning the table.