French has 15 tenses and moods. You need to produce about nine of them, six of those carry almost all ordinary conversation, and the remaining handful you only ever need to recognise on a page. Most learners stall because they spread effort evenly across all 15 instead of driving the first six to automatic recall. Here's the split, and the order that wastes the least time.
The six that carry conversation
If you can use these without thinking, you can hold a real conversation. Everything after this section is refinement.
- Présent — current states, habits, general truths, and in French, the near future too (je pars demain). The single highest-value thing to master.
- Passé composé — completed past events. The default past tense in speech.
- Imparfait — background, description, habitual past. Pairs with the passé composé constantly, which is why choosing between them is the classic sticking point.
- Futur proche (aller + infinitive) — strictly a construction rather than a tense, but it's how French speakers most often talk about the future, and it costs you one verb: aller.
- Impératif — requests, instructions, directions. Small, regular, and needed from your first day in a French-speaking country.
- Conditionnel présent — politeness above all (je voudrais), plus hypotheticals. Being able to say je voudrais instead of je veux changes how people respond to you.
Note what isn't here: the futur simple. It's genuinely useful and you should learn it, but in speech the futur proche does most of the work, so it isn't part of the conversational minimum.
The three that get you to B2
Once the six above are automatic, these are what separate a functional speaker from a comfortable one.
- Futur simple — more formal and more written than the futur proche, and required for the full si-clause patterns. Worth learning alongside the conditionnel, since they share a stem.
- Subjonctif présent — unavoidable in French, because it's triggered by extremely common phrases: il faut que, je veux que, bien que, avant que. Unlike Spanish or Italian, you can't route around it. See the trigger list.
- Plus-que-parfait — the past before the past (j'avais déjà mangé). Structurally free once you know the passé composé and the imparfait, since it's just avoir/être in the imparfait plus the past participle.
What you only need to recognise
These appear in reading and formal writing. Learning to produce them is, for almost every learner, a poor use of time.
- Passé simple — the literary past. You'll meet it in novels, history and fairy tales, essentially never in speech. Knowing that il fut is être and il eut is avoir is most of the battle. More on how it differs from the passé composé.
- Subjonctif imparfait and subjonctif plus-que-parfait — near-extinct outside literature and deliberately formal register.
- Passé antérieur — literary, and paired with the passé simple.
- Futur antérieur and conditionnel passé — genuinely used, but late. The conditionnel passé earns production at B2, for regrets and unrealised conditions (j'aurais dû).
What the exams expect
Roughly, for the DELF:
| Level | Expected to produce |
|---|---|
| A1 | Présent, impératif, futur proche; passé composé introduced |
| A2 | The above plus imparfait and futur simple |
| B1 | Plus conditionnel, plus-que-parfait, subjonctif présent, si-clauses |
| B2 | All of the above comfortably, plus conditionnel passé and subjonctif passé; passé simple by recognition |
Exam specifications get revised, so confirm against the current syllabus for your sitting rather than trusting a table on a blog, this one included. If you're working level by level, our verbs by CEFR level pages list which verbs to pair with which stage.
The order that wastes the least time
Learn tenses in frequency order and drive each one to automatic recall before adding the next:
présent → passé composé → imparfait → futur proche → impératif → conditionnel présent → futur simple → subjonctif présent → plus-que-parfait
The failure mode is adding a tense before the previous one is automatic. It's how learners end up half-knowing six tenses instead of solidly knowing three, which feels like progress and performs much worse under the pressure of an actual conversation. If you want to check where you stand, our conjugation practice drills tense by tense and tracks which ones are shaky, and the tense guides cover the formation rules for each.
Common questions
How many French tenses do you need to be conversational?
Six: présent, passé composé, imparfait, futur proche, impératif and conditionnel présent. Those cover the present, the recent past, the near future, requests and politeness. Everything beyond them is refinement.
Do you need to learn the passé simple?
Only to recognise it. It's a literary tense used in novels, history writing and formal journalism, and it has effectively vanished from speech. Knowing the third-person forms of common verbs is enough to read comfortably.
Which French tenses are on the DELF exams?
A1 expects présent, impératif and futur proche with the passé composé introduced; A2 adds imparfait and futur simple; B1 adds conditionnel, plus-que-parfait, subjonctif présent and si-clauses; B2 expects all of those plus conditionnel passé and subjonctif passé, and reading comprehension of the passé simple.
Is the subjunctive really necessary in French?
Yes. Unlike Spanish or Italian, you can't quietly avoid it, because it's triggered by very common expressions like il faut que and je veux que. The présent du subjonctif is the only form you need to produce in speech, and about a dozen triggers cover most cases.
What order should you learn French tenses in?
Frequency order: présent, passé composé, imparfait, futur proche, impératif, conditionnel présent, futur simple, subjonctif présent, plus-que-parfait. Get each to automatic recall before adding the next.
