Donner French Conjugation

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TranslationPresent Conjugation of Donner in FrenchImperfect Tense Donner Conjugation in FrenchFrench Donner Conjugation in the Future TenseFrench Conjugation of Donner in the Passé Composé TenseFuture Perfect Tense Conjugation of the Verb Donner in FrenchNear Future Tense Conjugation of Donner in FrenchExamples of the Conjugation of Donner in FrenchConclusion

Do you struggle with the donner French conjugation? Well, you’ll be able to learn how to after reading this article.

Translation

Donner is the French verb meaning “to give”, so it would be used to translate a sentence such as “you give him your bike” to “Tu lui donnes ton vélo”.

This verb is a regular er verb; it follows the same rules as most er verbs. So, once you have learnt the rules for donner you can apply them to most others that end in er.

Present Conjugation of Donner in French

As with all verbs in French they will change depending on the tense that you are using them in and who you are referring to when speaking. So, here are the verb conjugations for present tense.

As you can see, in the present tense, donner follows the same present-tense endings as other regular -er verbs, such as adding an “e” to the stem of the word (in this case “donn”) for I and he/she while an “es” is added for you.

Imperfect Tense Donner Conjugation in French

With the imperfect tense, you again keep the stem of the word the same and change the ending depending on who is being spoken about.

When conjugating donner in the imperfect tense it is important to remember to add the “a” in “they used to give” as that is the version that changes the most and is a common mistake, due to the other plurals beginning with an “i”.

French Donner Conjugation in the Future Tense

For donner in the future tense, keep the infinitive donner- and add -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont.

The endings do not all sound alike. Je donnerai and vous donnerez normally end in an “é” sound; tu donneras and il donnera end in an “a” sound, while nous donnerons and ils donneront end in a nasal “on” sound.

French Conjugation of Donner in the Passé Composé Tense

The passé composé typically presents an action as a completed past event: you did something or have done something. An exact time does not have to be specified. The imperfect describes past habits, ongoing actions, or background situations.

The passé composé of donner combines a conjugated form of avoir (to have) with the past participle donné.

In the examples below, the past participle stays donné while avoir changes with the subject. With avoir, the participle agrees with a direct object placed before it: les lettres que j’ai données (the letters I have given).

As you can see the conjugation of the verb avoir uses the present tense while being used with the past participle. Also, remember that when a vowel follows “Je” the “e” is replaced with an apostrophe and when speaking the words run together.

Future Perfect Tense Conjugation of the Verb Donner in French

The future perfect is similar to the passé composé as it uses a conjugated version of the verb avoir to create the correct tense for the verb donner, which will again retain the past participle when being used.

This tense is used for saying you will have done something.

So, again in this tense it is the verb “avoir” that is changing to denote the change in tense for the verb “donner”.

Near Future Tense Conjugation of Donner in French

The near future tense is used when you want to say that you are going to do something, for example “I am going to read”.

This tense, similar to the future perfect and passé composé, uses the conjugated version of a second verb to change the tense of the verb donner. This time using the verb aller meaning “to go”.

The conjugation of donner in this tense remains as the infinitive, while aller changes depending on who is mentioned.

In the same way that the verb “avoir” is used in its present tense conjugation for the passé composé, the verb aller is used in its present tense conjugation for the near future. Other conjugations of aller can be found here, should you need them.

Examples of the Conjugation of Donner in French

• Je vais donner l’argent à une association caritative – (I am going to give the money to a charity)
• Je t’ai donné les billets – (I gave you the tickets)
• Ils me donnent tellement – (They give so much to me)
• Je donnais beaucoup de temps à mes études – (I used to give a lot of time to my studies)
  

Conclusion

As you can see there are many different tenses that donner can be used in, the same when speaking in English, all with different conjugations of the verb. The tenses listed in this article are just a few that are more commonly used in conversations.

Other French Verb Conjugations can be found at the links in the list below:

• Faire
• Voir
• Aller