FRENCH HELP: present tense indicatif et participe???

Question

When do i use the present indicatif and the present participe in french? Heck, what IS indicatif and participe?

I know that the indicatif of lets say PARLER is parlant and it means talkING...but when do I use this, and in what context?

For example, if I want to say "I am talking", should it be "je suis parlant"? or "je parle" ?? :S??

Please help me ! I've never learned this stuff...

Answer 1

I am talking would be

"Je suis parle."

If you need more help, www.freetranslation.com

then type in what you need, and make sure you change it to "english to french" or you'll get really bizzare answers =]

Answer 2

"Present indicatif" translates to "present indicative," and is the basic present tense you think of.

"Je parle."

"J'ai."

"Je suis."

All of these are "present indicatif."

"Present participe" translates to "present participle" and just means the verb.

In "Je parle," the word "parle" is the "present participe."

In "J'ai," the word "ai" is the "present participe."

In "Je suis," the word "suis" is the "present participe."

I don't normally hear "present participe" too often. It's mostly "participe passé ("past participle"), which refers to past tense conjugations.

In "J'ai parlé," the word "parlé" is the "participe passé."

In "J'ai eu," the word "eu" is the "participe passé."

In "J'ai été," the word "été" is the "participe passé."

Make sense?

If you need more help conjugating your verbs, this is a good start: http://www.wordreference.com/conj/FRverb...

Answer 3

I'm talking = je parle

We use the present participle in expressions with the preposition "en" e.g:

Il s'est fait mal en travaillant = he hurt himself (while) working.

En allant au travail, j'ai rencontré Paul = Going to work (literally) / On my way to work I met Paul.

Sachant/Connaissant votre intérêt, je vous propose de .... = Knowing your interest, I suggest you...

You have more examples there with the English translations:

http://www.languageguide.org/francais/gr...

--> e.g : When the present participle follows en, it is a gerund, equivalent to English -ing verbal nouns following while, by, or on.

Il faisait une grimace en mangeant ses escargots.

He was making a face while eating his snails.



But when you use the present continuous in English, like the simple present, you must use the indicative present in French, e.g

He is sleeping / he sleeps = il dort

However to show that the situation is continuous, in French you can say:

He is sleeping = il est en train de dormir --> en train de + infinitive

Answer 4

Ok, most of the time you are going to translate the "ing" form of an English verb as just the present indicative (present indicatif) form in French. So to say "I am talking" it is "Je parle." You only use the present participle (participe) if you are like using the "ing" form in English as a noun and sometimes you don't even do it then! Haha. Just translate the "ing" (when used as a verb) as just the present indicative tense.

Edit: The person above is wrong, "Je suis parle" does not make sense at all. Don't use the translation sites, they are bad!

Answer 5

French only has one form of the present indicative or simple present, which does not use the present participle. Only English and Spanish (as far as I know, and maybe Portuguese) have what is called the present progressive, as in "I am going." English also has the emphatic present, i.e. "I do go." All of these are translated only by the simple present in French.

The present participle in French mostly stands alone as an adjective or noun.

Answer 6

well the first i'm not sure but i guess it wouldnt be "je suis parlant" it would be "je parlant"

about the present participe it would be with ur example :

je parle

tu parles

il/elles parle

nous parlons

vous parles

ils/elles parlont

and thats "i talk, u talk, he talks...etc"

its the same rule for all verbs ending in "er" only

Answer 7

I'm speaking = je parle

You would need a couple of lessons in order to fully understand the Indicatif, u can't just learn it in a minute. It is used for expressing several different things. Sorry I probably wasn't much of a help!