Venir (to come) · All tenses

'Venir de + infinitive' = 'to have just + verb' — French's standard recent-past structure: 'je viens de manger' (I just ate), 'tu viens de partir?' (did you just leave?). It signals an action completed very recently. Always uses the present tense of venir + 'de' + infinitive. Note: this is NOT a literal 'come from' — it's a fixed idiom for the just-past.

Venir = to come (motion toward the speaker/reference point). Aller = to go (motion away). Same anchor-to-speaker logic as Spanish venir/ir. If someone calls you to come over and you say 'I'm coming!', French uses 'j'arrive!' or 'je viens!' depending on direction; if you're going TO them from your current location, 'j'arrive' is more natural.

Use ÊTRE (not avoir!) + past participle 'venu': je suis venu, tu es venu, il est venu / elle est venue, nous sommes venus / venues, vous êtes venu(e)(s), ils sont venus / elles sont venues. The participle agrees with the subject in gender and number.

Venir is one of the 'house of être' verbs — about 17 motion/state verbs that use être as their passé composé auxiliary. The list: aller, venir, partir, sortir, arriver, monter, descendre, naître, mourir, rester, tomber, devenir, retourner, entrer, rentrer, passer, revenir. All reflexive verbs also use être. Memorise the list — using avoir with these verbs is the most common French past-tense error.

Since venir uses être, the participle 'venu' agrees with the subject in both gender and number: il est venu (he came), elle est venue (she came, +e), ils sont venus (they came, masculine/mixed, +s), elles sont venues (they came, all feminine, +es). 'Vous êtes venu' if 'vous' is a singular formal male; 'vous êtes venues' for plural females, etc.

Venir is regular in the imparfait: je venais, tu venais, il/elle/on venait, nous venions, vous veniez, ils/elles venaient. Stem 'ven-' from nous form.

'Je venais de + infinitive' = 'I had just + past participle' — the past version of 'je viens de + infinitive'. 'Je venais d'arriver quand le téléphone a sonné' (I had just arrived when the phone rang). It anchors an even-more-recent past relative to another past event. Pair it with a passé composé event for the classic narrative structure.

Use 'je venais' for habitual or ongoing past coming: 'chaque jour, je venais ici' (every day, I used to come here). Use 'je suis venu' for a specific completed visit: 'hier, je suis venu ici' (yesterday, I came here).

The subjonctif of venir is: que je vienne, que tu viennes, qu'il vienne, que nous venions, que vous veniez, qu'ils viennent. Singular + ils use 'vienn-' (double n); nous/vous use 'ven-' (same as imparfait).

Use it after triggers of necessity, will, doubt, or future-pointing time clauses: 'il faut que je vienne' (I need to come), 'je veux que tu viennes' (I want you to come), 'avant que vous veniez' (before you come). Invitations also use the subjonctif: 'que tu viennes ou pas' (whether you come or not).

The doubled 'n' in 'vienne' preserves the original Latin geminate consonant. The pattern appears in singular + ils of the subjonctif ('vienne, viennes, vienne, viennent') and in ils of the present ('ils viennent'). The same applies to tenir (tienne, tiennent) and prendre (prenne, prennent).

The futur of venir uses 'viendr-': je viendrai, tu viendras, il/elle/on viendra, nous viendrons, vous viendrez, ils/elles viendront. The 'i' of the infinitive drops and a 'd' inserts to ease pronunciation.

Venir belongs to the 'd-insertion' future-stem family: venir → viendr-, tenir → tiendr-. Both verbs share the same Latin-derived contraction pattern. The 'd' inserts to avoid the awkward 'n-r' transition that 'veniré' would have required.

Both express future coming. 'Je viendrai' (futur simple) feels slightly more formal or committed. 'Je vais venir' (futur proche) is more conversational for near-term plans.

The conditionnel of venir is: je viendrais, tu viendrais, il/elle/on viendrait, nous viendrions, vous viendriez, ils/elles viendraient. Same stem 'viendr-' as the futur, plus imperfect endings.

Standard French hypothetical: 'si + imparfait, + conditionnel': 'si tu m'invitais, je viendrais' (if you invited me, I would come). The 'si' clause expresses the hypothetical condition; the main clause expresses the result. The conditionnel of venir is one of the most-used in this structure.

'Tu viendrais bien?' = 'Would you (gladly) come?' — a soft, polite invitation. The 'bien' adds gentleness, conveying that you'd appreciate it if they came. The conditional 'viendrais' (rather than 'viens' or 'tu viendras') softens the request from question/command to invitation.