How to Conjugate "Retourner" (To Return) in French

The French verb retourner is one of seven ways to say "to return" in French. It's a very useful word and easy to remember because it looks and sounds like its English equivalent. It is also based on the French tourner, which means "to turn."

Yet, before you use it in grammatically correct sentences, you'll need to learn its conjugations. This lesson will introduce you to the most basic of those.

The Basic Conjugations of Retourner

Retourner is a regular -er verb, so it follows the same conjugation pattern as the majority of French verbs. That does make it significantly easier than most French verb conjugations, especially if you've already studied similar verbs like donner (to give), arriver (to arrive), or countless other words.

It's always best to begin with the indicative mood when studying a new verb. This will allow you to use it in the present, future, and imperfect past tenses and these should cover almost any use you may have.

Using the verb stem (or radical) retourn- and the chart, you can learn which endings to add that are appropriate to both the subject pronoun and the tense of your sentence. For example, "I am returning" is je retourne and "we will return" is nous retournerons. Practice these in context whenever "returning" something and you'll find them much easier to memorize.

	Present	Future	Imperfect
je	retourne	retournerai	retournais
tu	retournes	retourneras	retournais
il	retourne	retournera	retournait
nous	retournons	retournerons	retournions
vous	retournez	retournerez	retourniez
ils	retournent	retourneront	retournaient

The Present Participle of Retourner

When you add -ant to the verb's radical, you form the present participle retournant. Not only is it a verb, it may also be an adjective, gerund, or noun in some circumstances.

Retournerin the Compound Past Tense

A common way to express the past tense of "returned" is with the passé composé. This is a compound, which means you need the auxiliary verb être as well as the past participle retourné.

To form this, begin by conjugating être into the present tense, then attach the past participle to indicate that someone or something has already returned. For example, "I returned" is je suis retourné and "we returned" is nous sommes retourné.

More Simple Conjugations

While the conjugations above should be your first priority, you may need to use retourner in other simple forms. Each of these has special usages, from questioning the act with the subjunctive to saying its dependent on something else with the conditional. The passé simple and the imperfect subjunctive are literary tenses, though they're also good to know.

	Subjunctive	Conditional	Passé Simple	Imperfect Subjunctive
je	retourne	retournerais	retournai	retournasse
tu	retournes	retournerais	retournas	retournasses
il	retourne	retournerait	retourna	retournât
nous	retournions	retournerions	retournâmes	retournassions
vous	retourniez	retourneriez	retournâtes	retournassiez
ils	retournent	retourneraient	retournèrent	retournassent

Exclamations such as "Return!" use the imperative form in French. When using these, the subject pronoun is not required, so you can simplify it to "Retourne !"

	Imperative
(tu)	retourne
(nous)	retournons
(vous)	retournez