How to Conjugate Agir (to Act) in French

As you continue to learn French, you may want to use the verb  agir, which means to act. Conjugating this French verb to match the subject and tense of a subject is actually quite easy because it is a regular verb. This quick French lesson will show you exactly how to do that. Conjugating the French Verb  Agir It is necessary to conjugate French verbs so they make sense in the context we wish to use them. We cannot simply use  agir  anytime we wish to say something or someone is acting or has acted. Instead, we need to change the ending of the verb and this is called conjugation. The good news is that  agir  is an easy one to conjugate. It follows the typical pattern of  regular  -ir verbs  to tell us which ending to use. This makes learning the conjugations for similar verbs rather easy. In the case of  agir, you can use the chart to discover the proper form to use based on the subject pronoun -- the I, he, we, etc. which are j, il, nous in French -- and the tense required. For instance, to say I act, you would say jagis in French. Subject Present Future Imperfect j' agis agirai agissais tu agis agiras agissais il agit agira agissait nous agissons agirons agissions vous agissez agirez agissiez ils agissent agiront agissaient Agirs Present Participle The  present participle  of  agir  is  agissant. Its a very useful conjugation as it can act as a verb, meaning acting, or you can utilize it as an adjective, gerund, or noun. Another  Past Tense of  Agir Its likely that you will use the  passà © composà ©Ã‚  for the past tense rather than the imperfect in many instances. Its even easier with a verb like  agir  because theres no need to worry about the subject as all instances use the same form of  agir. In order to use the  passà © composà ©, you must first conjugate the auxiliary verb  to match the subject. For this verb, we use  avoir.  You will also need the past participle, which is agi. To put these pieces together, if we want to say I acted, it would be jai agi in French. Likewise, we acted is quite simply nous avons agi. You will note that ai and avons are the conjugates of our auxiliary (or helping) verb  avoir. More Conjugations of  Agir Among those conjugations above, you should be familiar with the present, future, and  passà © composà ©. The other forms, as well as those below, will be used on occasion. While its not necessary to memorize them, you should be aware of them. The subjunctive is a verb mood that is used when the action is undecided. Likewise, the conditional verb mood is used when the action is dependent on conditions -- it may or may not happen. The last two columns contain the  passà © simple and imperfect subjunctive of the verb  agir. These forms are used in formal writing. Subject Subjunctive Conditional Passà © Simple Imperfect Subjunctive j' agisse agirais agis agisse tu agisses agirais agis agisses il agisse agirait agit agà ®t nous agissions agirions agà ®mes agissions vous agissiez agiriez agà ®tes agissiez ils agissent agiraient agirent agissent The final conjugation of  agir  that you need to be concerned with is the imperative. This is another mood verb form that is used on occasion. The catch here is that you do not need to use the subject pronoun. Instead, it is implied in the imperative verb.   For instance, instead of tu agis you can simply use the verb  agis. Imperative (tu) agis (nous) agissons (vous) agissez Expand Your Understanding of  Agir Not only is  agir  a regular verb, it is also an impersonal verb. This means that it can be used in the impersonal form of  sagir de  which means to be a question of or to have to do with. Also, when you want to say to act like you will need to use the proper preposition. For  agir, that would be  agir en.