How to Conjugate the French Verb Rester (to Stay)

How to Conjugate the French Verb Rester (to Stay) Rester is the French verb that means to stay or to remain. This is a very useful word and one youll want to add to your vocabulary. To use  rester properly, youll need to study its conjugations. This will allow you to say I am staying, he stayed and similar phrases. The good news is that  rester  is a regular verb, so its a little easier to memorize than others. The Basic Conjugations of  Rester Rester is a regular -er verb, meaning it follows a very common conjugation pattern. If you have studied other French verbs like passer (to pass) or visiter (to visit), you can apply the same infinitive endings you already know to this verb. The indicative mood is the most common and these are the forms of  rester  that youll use most often for the basic present, future, and imperfect past tenses. Using the verb stem (or radical)  rest-, you will add a variety of endings to match both the subject pronoun and the tense of your sentence. The chart will help you memorize these various forms. For example, I am staying is  je reste  and we will stay is  nous resterons. Your daily life should have plenty of opportunities to practice this verb and the more you use it, the easier it is to remember. Present Future Imperfect je reste resterai restais tu restes resteras restais il reste restera restait nous restons resterons restions vous restez resterez restiez ils restent resteront restaient The Present Participle of Rester When we add an -ant  ending to the stem of  rester, the result is the  present participle  restant. Rester  in the Compound Past Tense While there are other compound forms you can study, well focus on the most common for this lesson. The  passà © composà ©Ã‚  is used for the past tense and requires the  auxiliary verb  Ãƒ ªtre  as well as the  past participle  restà ©. The only conjugation required for this is à ªtre into the present tense for the subject. The past participle remains unchanged and takes care of implying that the action happened in the past. For example, I stayed is je suis restà © and we stayed is nous sommes restà ©. You can see how this can be much easier than memorizing all those imperfect forms, but dont skip those just to save time. Your French teacher may require you use them. More Simple Conjugations of Rester The  rester  conjugations above should be your top priority, though there are a few more simple conjugations you may need from time to time. They each have their own purpose and are good to know. For instance, when the action is uncertain, the subjunctive is used. In an if...then situation, you can use the conditional. Less frequently, you may even need the  passà © simple  or  imperfect subjunctive, though these tend to be for formal uses. Subjunctive Conditional Passà © Simple Imperfect Subjunctive je reste resterais restai restasse tu restes resterais restas restasses il reste resterait resta restà ¢t nous restions resterions restà ¢mes restassions vous restiez resteriez restà ¢tes restassiez ils restent resteraient restà ¨rent restassent If you want to command your dog to Stay! in French, you can use the imperative form.  For this, you can skip the subject pronoun and simplify it to Reste !  Of course, it has other uses, but the idea of training your dog in French is a fun idea. Imperative (tu) reste (nous) restons (vous) restez