espérer

See also: esperer

French

Etymology

From Middle French and Old French esperer, from Latin spērāre, present active infinitive of spērō (“hope, expect”), from Proto-Indo-European *speh₁- (“to prosper, to turn out well”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɛs.pe.ʁe/
  • audio(file)

Verb

espérer

  1. (intransitive) to hope
    J’espère réussir. ― I hope to succeed.
    J’espère qu’il viendra bientôt. ― I hope he will come soon.
  2. (transitive) to hope for
    J’espère un succès rapide. ― I hope for quick success
  3. (intransitive) to have faith, to trust (with en (“in”))
    Il faut espérer. ― You must have faith.
    Il faut espérer en Dieu. ― You must trust in God.
  4. (Louisiana, also) to wait
    Espere-voir un bout. ― Please wait a bit.

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated like céder. It is a regular -er verb, except that its last stem vowel alternates between /e/ (written ‘é’) and /ɛ/ (written ‘è’), with the latter being used before mute ‘e’. One special case is the future stem, used in the future and the conditional. Before 1990, the future stem of such verbs was written espérer-, reflecting the historic pronunciation /e/. In 1990, the French Academy recommended that it be written espèrer-, reflecting the now common pronunciation /ɛ/, thereby making this distinction consistent throughout the conjugation (and also matching in this regard the conjugations of verbs like lever and jeter). Both spellings are in use today, and both are therefore given here.

  Conjugation of espérer (see also Appendix:French verbs)
simple compound
infinitive espérer avoir espéré
gerund en espérant en ayant espéré
present participle espérant
/ɛs.pe.ʁɑ̃/
past participle espéré
/ɛs.pe.ʁe/
person singular plural
first second third first second third
indicative je (j’) tu il nous vous ils
simple
tenses		 present espère
/ɛs.pɛʁ/		 espères
/ɛs.pɛʁ/		 espère
/ɛs.pɛʁ/		 espérons
/ɛs.pe.ʁɔ̃/		 espérez
/ɛs.pe.ʁe/		 espèrent
/ɛs.pɛʁ/
imperfect espérais
/ɛs.pe.ʁɛ/		 espérais
/ɛs.pe.ʁɛ/		 espérait
/ɛs.pe.ʁɛ/		 espérions
/ɛs.pe.ʁjɔ̃/		 espériez
/ɛs.pe.ʁje/		 espéraient
/ɛs.pe.ʁɛ/
past historic1 espérai
/ɛs.pe.ʁe/		 espéras
/ɛs.pe.ʁa/		 espéra
/ɛs.pe.ʁa/		 espérâmes
/ɛs.pe.ʁam/		 espérâtes
/ɛs.pe.ʁat/		 espérèrent
/ɛs.pe.ʁɛʁ/
future espèrerai or espérerai
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁe/		 espèreras or espéreras
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁa/		 espèrera or espérera
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁa/		 espèrerons or espérerons
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁɔ̃/		 espèrerez or espérerez
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁe/		 espèreront or espéreront
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁɔ̃/
conditional espèrerais or espérerais
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁɛ/		 espèrerais or espérerais
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁɛ/		 espèrerait or espérerait
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁɛ/		 espèrerions or espérerions
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁjɔ̃/		 espèreriez or espéreriez
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁje/		 espèreraient or espéreraient
/ɛs.pɛ.ʁə.ʁɛ/
compound
tenses		 present perfect Use the present tense of avoir followed by the past participle
pluperfect Use the imperfect tense of avoir followed by the past participle
past anterior1 Use the past historic tense of avoir followed by the past participle
future perfect Use the future tense of avoir followed by the past participle
conditional perfect Use the conditional tense of avoir followed by the past participle
subjunctive que je (j’) que tu qu’il que nous que vous qu’ils
simple
tenses		 present espère
/ɛs.pɛʁ/		 espères
/ɛs.pɛʁ/		 espère
/ɛs.pɛʁ/		 espérions
/ɛs.pe.ʁjɔ̃/		 espériez
/ɛs.pe.ʁje/		 espèrent
/ɛs.pɛʁ/
imperfect1 espérasse
/ɛs.pe.ʁas/		 espérasses
/ɛs.pe.ʁas/		 espérât
/ɛs.pe.ʁa/		 espérassions
/ɛs.pe.ʁa.sjɔ̃/		 espérassiez
/ɛs.pe.ʁa.sje/		 espérassent
/ɛs.pe.ʁas/
compound
tenses		 past Use the present subjunctive tense of avoir followed by the past participle
pluperfect1 Use the imperfect subjunctive tense of avoir followed by the past participle
imperative – tu – nous vous –
— espère
/ɛs.pɛʁ/		 — espérons
/ɛs.pe.ʁɔ̃/		 espérez
/ɛs.pe.ʁe/		 —
1literary tenses

Further reading

Anagrams

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.