Learn the Verb Conjugations for "Poser" (to Put)

When you want to say that you "are putting" or "did put" something somewhere in French, you will use the verb poser. It's a word you will find many uses for in conversation, so it's a good idea to study its many conjugations. That is the subject of this French lesson.

The Basic Conjugations of Poser

French students will be happy to know that poser is a regular -er verb. That means there are no special tricks to its conjugations and that you can apply what you learned from similar verbs to this one.

The goal with any conjugation is to transform the verb into a grammatically correct form that makes sense for the sentence. This is meant to imply when the action took place and who did it. That is done by adding a variety of endings to the verb stem (or radical). The catch is that French gives you a new form for every subject within each tense.

We'll begin with the indicative mood, which you will use most often for the basic present, future, and imperfect past tenses. The radical of poser is pos- and you can find the appropriate ending in the chart. As an example, je pose means "I am putting" and nous posions means "we did put."

	Present	Future	Imperfect
je	pose	poserai	posais
tu	poses	poseras	posais
il	pose	posera	posait
nous	posons	poserons	posions
vous	posez	poserez	posiez
ils	posent	poseront	posaient

The Present Participle of Poser

The present participle of poser is posant. This was formed by simply adding -ant to the radical. 

Poser in the Compound Past Tense

For the French past tense, you have the option between the imperfect or the passé composé. The latter is a compound that requires the present tense conjugate of avoir and the past participle posé. This gives you phrases such as j'ai posé for "I did put" and nous avons posé for "we did put."

More Simple Conjugations of Poser

The subjunctive is used when the act of putting is uncertain. The conditional says that something will be put somewhere only if certain conditions are met. On occasion, you may also use the passé simple or the imperfect subjunctive, especially if you do much reading or writing in French as these are literary forms of the verb.

	Subjunctive	Conditional	Passé Simple	Imperfect Subjunctive
je	pose	poserais	posai	posasse
tu	poses	poserais	posas	posasses
il	pose	poserait	posa	posât
nous	posions	poserions	posâmes	posassions
vous	posiez	poseriez	posâtes	posassiez
ils	posent	poseraient	posèrent	posassent

Useful for a verb like poser, the French imperative is often used when you want to be assertive and to the point. The main thing to remember is that it's okay to drop the subject pronoun, using  pose rather than tu pose.

	Imperative
(tu)	pose
(nous)	posons
(vous)	posez