Vouloir French Conjugation

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DefinitionPresent Tense Vouloir Conjugation in FrenchVouloir French Conjugation in the Imperfect TenseFuture Tense French Conjugation of VouloirFrench Conjugation in the Conditional Tense of VouloirFrench Vouloir Conjugation in the Passé Composé TenseThe Pluperfect Tense Vouloir Conjugation in FrenchFrench Verb Conjugation of Vouloir in the Subjunctive TenseThe Pluperfect Tense Vouloir Conjugation in French in Subjunctive TenseLe Passé Historique (Passé simple) Conjugation of Vouloir in FrenchThe Passé Antérieur Tense Conjugation of VouloirFrench Conjugation of Vouloir in the Futur Antérieur TenseOther ResourcesConclusion

Have you ever tried to conjugate vouloir as you would a regular verb and got the wrong word? Well, let me show you how to do it the right way.

Definition

Vouloir is the French verb meaning to want. So, for example if you want to say “I want an orange” that would be “Je veux une orange”, because veux is the conjugation of the verb vouloir for “I”.

This verb is irregular. It ends in -oir, which means it won’t follow the same rules as regular -er, -ir or -re verbs.

Present Tense Vouloir Conjugation in French

This is the most common tense that will be used in relation to vouloir, as it will mean that you will be communicating a current want.

A common way to ask “Do you want?” in French is Voulez-vous… ? The verb and subject pronoun are switched around and joined with a hyphen to form a question.

Also, it is clear in this tense why vouloir is known as an irregular verb: the first three conjugations don’t retain the stem of the word.

Examples:

• Je veux une orange – (I want an orange)
• Nous voulons nous marier bientôt – (We want to get married soon)

Vouloir French Conjugation in the Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense is past tense, used to talk about what you wanted in the past, so is roughly translated as “I wanted”.

In this tense, vouloir follows the same rules as regular er verbs in how it is conjugated.

Future Tense French Conjugation of Vouloir

This tense will be used when you are talking about what you will want in the future.

Example:

• Ils voudront bientôt fermer la cuisine – (They will soon want to close the kitchen)

French Conjugation in the Conditional Tense of Vouloir

The conditional of vouloir often means “would like,” including a polite request about the present: Je voudrais un café (I would like a coffee). It can also express a hypothetical wish, and it may be followed by a noun or an infinitive.

The conditional tense and the future tense, have very similar conjugations, but they do not mean the same thing. This makes it easy to get the pair mixed up, so it is important to pay attention to which is being used.

Example:

• Je voudrais habiter à Paris – (I would like to live in Paris)

French Vouloir Conjugation in the Passé Composé Tense

The passé composé combines the present tense of “avoir” with the past participle of “vouloir” to create this tense.

So, this tense’s conjugation of “vouloir” in French is rather easy to remember if you have learnt how to conjugate the verb “avoir”.

Example:

• Ils ont voulu reprendre l’entreprise pendant un certain temps – (They wanted to take over the company for a while)

The Pluperfect Tense Vouloir Conjugation in French

French Verb Conjugation of Vouloir in the Subjunctive Tense

The Pluperfect Tense Vouloir Conjugation in French in Subjunctive Tense

Le Passé Historique (Passé simple) Conjugation of Vouloir in French

The Passé Antérieur Tense Conjugation of Vouloir

French Conjugation of Vouloir in the Futur Antérieur Tense

Other Resources

Everyone learns in different ways, so if you think you would learn the French verb conjugation of Vouloir better when you aren’t reading tables there are other resources available.

These include music videos on this conjugation, such as this one, where you can learn the French vouloir conjugation through song.

Alternatively, there is an audiobook available here for not just Vouloir but a variety of different verbs.

Conclusion

Other tenses have different conjugations for these verbs, and the tables above include both everyday and literary forms. As vouloir is an irregular verb, it will not follow the same rules as regular verbs, so you will need to learn the regular conjugations as well as the conjugations of vouloir and other irregular verbs.

Another irregular verb is voir, meaning to see, the conjugation for which can be found here.

Other articles on verb conjugations can be found here:

• Faire
• Aller
• Dire