How to Conjugate "Influencer" (to Influence) in French

As you might suspect, the French verb influencer means "to influence." Yet, when you want to say "influenced" in the past tense or "influencing" in the present tense, you'll need to know how to conjugate the verb. A quick lesson will introduce you to the most important conjugations you'll need.

The Basic Conjugations of Influencer

French verb conjugations are not the easiest lessons and some are more challenging than others. Influencer is a spelling change verb and that may sound scary at first, but it's not bad and there's a good reason for it.

The spelling change affects the c at the end of the verb stem influenc-. Typically, when that letter is followed by the vowels a or o, the sound is hard as in "cat." To retain the soft c sound in the conjugations with endings that begin with these vowels, the c changes to a ç.

Other than that minor difference in some verb forms, influencer is conjugated like a regular -er verb. Using the chart, you can study these conjugations by pairing the subject pronoun with the present, future, and imperfect past tenses. As an example, j'influence means "I am influencing" and nous influencions means "we influenced."

	Present	Future	Imperfect
j'	influence	influencerai	influençais
tu	influences	influenceras	influençais
il	influence	influencera	influençait
nous	influençons	influencerons	influencions
vous	influencez	influencerez	influenciez
ils	influencent	influenceront	influençaient

The Present Participle of Influencer

Due to the -ant ending used to form the present participle of influencer, the spelling change is required here as well. That gives us the word influençant.

Influencer in the Compound Past Tense

Passé composé is another way to say "influenced" in French. This compound past tense requires the past participle influencé and an auxiliary verb.

To form this, conjugate avoir into the present tense for the subject, then add influencé. This leaves us with phrases such as j'ai influencé (I influenced) and nous avons influencé (we influenced).

More Simple Conjugations of Influencer

Among the other simple conjugations, you may need for influencer are the subjunctive and the conditional. Both give the act of influencing some uncertainty, though the conditional says it will only happen under certain conditions.

If you read or write much French, you will likely encounter the passé simple and the imperfect subjunctive. These are literary tenses and used frequently in formal French writing.

	Subjunctive	Conditional	Passé Simple	Imperfect Subjunctive
j'	influence	influencerais	influençai	influençasse
tu	influences	influencerais	influenças	influençasses
il	influence	influencerait	influença	influençât
nous	influencions	influencerions	influençâmes	influençassions
vous	influenciez	influenceriez	influençâtes	influençassiez
ils	influencent	influenceraient	influencèrent	influençassent

It is possible that you will find some uses for influencer in the French imperative. When you do use it, all formality is dropped and you can skip the subject pronoun.

	Imperative
(tu)	influence
(nous)	influençons
(vous)	influencez