How to Conjugate Obéir (to Obey) in French

In French, the verb  obà ©ir  means to obey. It is very similar to its counterpart  dà ©sobà ©ir  (to disobey) and the two require the same verb conjugations. That means you can study both at the same time and make each a little easier to learn. Were going to study  obà ©ir  in this lesson and introduce you to its most basic conjugations. The Basic Conjugations of  Obà ©ir French verb conjugations are required to transform the verb into things like the present tense am obeying and the past tense obeyed. To form them, you will add a variety of endings to the verb stem, much as we do in English. The catch with French is that theres a new ending for every subject pronoun within each tense. While that does mean you have more words to remember, it does become easier with each new verb you study.  Obà ©ir  is a  regular -ir verb, which is one of the more common patterns, so that also makes memorization a little easier. To begin, well work with the indicative verb mood and the basic present, future, and imperfect past tenses. All you need to do is match the subject pronoun to the proper tense for you subject in the chart to learn which ending to use. For example, I am obeying is  jobà ©is  while we will obey is  nous obà ©irons. Present Future Imperfect j obis obirai obissais tu obis obiras obissais il obit obira obissait nous obissons obirons obissions vous obissez obirez obissiez ils obissent obiront obissaient The Present Participle of Obà ©ir As with most -ir verbs, you will need to add -ssant to obà ©ir to form the present participle. The result is the word obà ©issant. Obà ©ir in the Compound Past Tense For the past tense, you can choose between the imperfect or the passà © composà ©, which is one of the most often used compounds in French. To form it for obà ©ir, youll need the auxiliary verb avoir and the past participle obà ©i. For example, I obeyed is jai obà ©i  and we obeyed is nous avons obà ©i. Notice how you only need to conjugate  avoir in the present tense to match the subject and that the past participle always remains the same. More Simple Conjugations of Obà ©ir At times, you may also find a few other simple conjugations useful. For instance,  the  subjunctive allows you to imply some uncertainty to the action of obeying. Similarly, the  conditional is useful for an if...then situation where something else must happen first. There may also be times when youll encounter or use  the  passà © simple  or  imperfect subjunctive. Subjunctive Conditional Pass Simple Imperfect Subjunctive j obisse obirais obis obisse tu obisses obirais obis obisses il obisse obirait obit obt nous obissions obirions obmes obissions vous obissiez obiriez obtes obissiez ils obissent obiraient obirent obissent For a verb like  obà ©ir, the  imperative can be quite useful, especially when you want to command or forcefully request that someone Obey! The subject pronoun is not required, so you can simplify it to Obà ©is ! Imperative (tu) obis (nous) obissons (vous) obissez