Learn How to Conjugate "Saisir" (to Seize) in French

A regular French verb, saisir means "to seize." It's a relatively easy verb to conjugate and this lesson will show you how to say things such as "she seized" in the past tense and "we are seizing" in the present tense.

The Basic Conjugations of Saisir

Many French students fear verb conjugations because there are so many words to remember. While these can be a challenge, a verb like saisir is just a little easier because it is a regular -ir verb. This means you can apply the same endings you learned with similar verbs to this one.

The first step in any conjugation is to identify the verb stem. For saisir, that is sais-. With that, you can find the appropriate endings to apply using the indicative mood chart. Simply find the subject pronoun you need, then match that to either the present, future, or imperfect past tense. You'll get results such as je saisis (I am seizing) and nous saisirons (we will seize).

	Present	Future	Imperfect
je	saisis	saisirai	saisissais
tu	saisis	saisiras	saisissais
il	saisit	saisira	saisissait
nous	saisissons	saisirons	saisissions
vous	saisissez	saisirez	saisissiez
ils	saisissent	saisiront	saisissaient

The Present Participle of Saisir

As a regular -ir verb, you'll add -issant to the verb stem of saisir to form the present participle. This produces the word saisissant.

Saisir in the Compound Past Tense

You will use saisir's past participle saisi to form the compound past tense. In French, this is known as passé composé. The only other requirement is a present tense conjugate of the auxiliary verb avoir. For example, "I seized" is j'ai saisi and "we seized" is nous avons saisi.

More Simple Conjugations of Saisir

Should you have doubts about something being seized, you can use the subjunctive forms of saisir. The conditional, on the other hand, is used in an "if...then" sentence. You should only encounter the passé simple and the imperfect subjunctive in written French as these are literary tenses.

	Subjunctive	Conditional	Passé Simple	Imperfect Subjunctive
je	saisisse	saisirais	saisis	saisisse
tu	saisisses	saisirais	saisis	saisisses
il	saisisse	saisirait	saisit	saisît
nous	saisissions	saisirions	saisîmes	saisissions
vous	saisissiez	saisiriez	saisîtes	saisissiez
ils	saisissent	saisiraient	saisirent	saisissent

The imperative is used most often in exclamations and short, direct statements. This is the one time when the subject pronoun is not required, so you can shorten tu saisis to saisis.

	Imperative
(tu)	saisis
(nous)	saisissons
(vous)	saisissez