Learn Basic Conjugates of Souhaiter (to Wish) in French

The French verb  souhaiter  means to wish. Theres no really good association or memory trick for an English counterpart, so youll simply have to remember its meaning. Conjugating the verb to mean things such as she is wishing or we wished is not too difficult. Its a regular verb so French students with some experience in conjugations will find this lesson relatively easy. The Basic Conjugations of  Souhaiter All French verbs must be conjugated. Unlike English, which offers only a few forms based on the present, past, or future tense, French changes the word for every subject pronoun within each tense. This means you have more memorization work to do, but it does get easier with practice. Souhaiter  is a  regular -er verb, so it follows the patterns of the majority of French verbs. Consider studying a few at a time to make each a little easier to memorize. Words like  rà ªver  (to dream)  and  trouver  (to find)  would be excellent study companions. With any conjugation, the indicative mood is the easiest and most useful. This includes the basic present, future, and imperfect past tenses which you will use frequently. Begin by finding the verb stem ( souhait-), then study the chart to find the ending that fits the subject and the tense. This gives us things like  je souhaite  for I am wishing and  nous souhaitions  for we wished. Present Future Imperfect je souhaite souhaiterai souhaitais tu souhaites souhaiteras souhaitais il souhaite souhaitera souhaitait nous souhaitons souhaiterons souhaitions vous souhaitez souhaiterez souhaitiez ils souhaitent souhaiteront souhaitaient The Present Participle of  Souhaiter As with most regular verbs, the  present participle  is an easy conjugation. Simply add -ant  to the radical and you have  souhaitant. Souhaiter  in the Compound Past Tense For the compound past tense (passà © composà ©) in French, youll need an auxiliary verb. For souhaiter that is avoir, which needs to be conjugated in the present according to the subject. You will then simply add the past participle souhaità © to ensure the actions interpreted as having already happened. Its actually quite easy to form. For example, I wished is  jai souhaità ©Ã‚  and we wished is  nous avons souhaità ©. More Simple Conjugations of  Souhaiter The subjunctive  forms of  souhaiter  can be used to question whether the act of wishing actually happens.  The conditional  says that the act is dependent on certain conditions. You should only need the passà © simple  and  the imperfect subjunctive  if you read or write in French as these are literary tenses. Subjunctive Conditional Pass Simple Imperfect Subjunctive je souhaite souhaiterais souhaitai souhaitasse tu souhaites souhaiterais souhaitas souhaitasses il souhaite souhaiterait souhaita souhaitt nous souhaitions souhaiterions souhaitmes souhaitassions vous souhaitiez souhaiteriez souhaittes souhaitassiez ils souhaitent souhaiteraient souhaitrent souhaitassent The French imperative  is used for short statements and theres no need to include the subject pronoun. Simplify  tu souhaite  to  souhaite  and youre good to go. Imperative (tu)           souhaite (nous)   souhaitons (vous)  Ã‚  souhaitez​