How to Conjugate Prêter (to Loan) in French

The French verb  prà ªter  means to loan. When you want to change it to loaned or will loan, a verb conjugation is required. The good news is that this is a regular verb, so conjugating it is relatively easy compared to others. A quick lesson will introduce you to the essential forms of  prà ªter  youll need. The Basic Conjugations of  Prà ªter Prà ªter is a regular -er verb, so it falls into the largest category of verbs found in the French language. If youve already committed words like rester (to remain) or utiliser (to use) to memory, you can apply the same rules to this verb. With any conjugation, start by finding the verb stem (or radical). For  prà ªter, this is  prà ªt-. To this, a variety of endings are added to match both the tense of the sentence as well as the subject pronoun. For example, in the indicative mood,  je prà ªte  means I am loaning and  nous prà ªtions  means we loaned. Present Future Imperfect je prte prterai prtais tu prtes prteras prtais il prte prtera prtait nous prtons prterons prtions vous prtez prterez prtiez ils prtent prteront prtaient The Present Participle of  Prà ªter The  present participle  is easy to form as well. An -ant  ending is added to the stem of  prà ªter  to create the word  prà ªtant. Prà ªter  in the Compound Past Tense For the past tense, you can use the imperfect or the  passà © composà ©. The latter is a compound and requires you to use the  past participle  prà ªtà ©. First, however, you must conjugate the auxiliary verb  avoir  into the present tense. Its actually quite easy. I loaned is  jai prà ªtà ©Ã‚  and we loaned is  nous avons prà ªtà ©. More Simple Conjugations of  Prà ªter The forms of  prà ªter  above should be your top priority, but there may be times when youll need to use the verb in more subjective terms. For instance,  the subjunctive  calls the act of loaning into question while  the conditional  implies that its dependent on something else. The passà © simple  and  the imperfect subjunctive  are used less frequently. Youll likely only encounter them in formal French writing as they are both literary tenses. Subjunctive Conditional Pass Simple Imperfect Subjunctive je prte prterais prtai prtasse tu prtes prterais prtas prtasses il prte prterait prta prtt nous prtions prterions prtmes prtassions vous prtiez prteriez prttes prtassiez ils prtent prteraient prtrent prtassent The French imperative  may not be as useful for a word like  prà ªter, but its good to know anyway. The important rule here is that you dont need the subject pronoun: use  prà ªte  rather than  tu prà ªte. Imperative (tu) prte (nous) prtons (vous) prtez