French Verb Focus: Envoyer or ‘To Send’

The French verb envoyer means ‘to send’. It is important to remember that the ‘y’ changes to ‘i’ in all persons except the first and second person plural in the present tense. The perfect and imperfect tenses are regular but the future and conditional are not, so take care to learn these.

Present tense

J’envoie – I send, I am sending
Tu envoies – you send, you are sending (sing.fam.)
Il envoie – he/it sends, he/it is sending
Elle envoie – she/it sends, she/it is sending
Nous envoyons – we send, we are sending
Vous envoyez – you send, you are sending (pol.pl.)
Ils envoient – they send, they are sending (m.)
Elles envoient – they send, they are sending (f.)

(sing.fam.) – singular, familiar
(pol.pl.) – polite/plural

Perfect tense – passé composé

J’ai envoyé – I have sent, I sent, I did send
Tu as envoyé – you have sent, you sent, you did send
Il a envoyé – he/it has sent, he/it sent, he did send
Elle a envoyé – she/it has sent, she/it sent, she did send
Nous avons envoyé – we have sent, we sent, we did send
Vous avez envoyé – you have sent, you sent, you did send
Ils/Elles ont envoyé– They have sent, they sent, they did send

Future tense

J’enverrai les photos à mes parents. – I will send the photos to my parents.
Tu enverras une carte aux jumeaux? – Will you send a card to the twins?
Il enverra sa démission le mois prochain. – He will hand in his resignation next month.
Elle enverra les enfants à la plage. – She will send the children to the beach.
Nous enverrons chercher des fleurs. – We will send for some flowers.
Vous m’enverrez de vos nouvelles? – Will you send me your news?
Ils enverront le colis en recommandé. – They will send the parcel recorded delivery.
Elles enverront les lettres par bateau. – They will send the letters by surface mail.

Imperfect tense

J’envoyais toujours des lettres à mes grandparents. – I always used to send letters to my grandparents.

Conditional tense

Je vous enverrais tous les livres s’ils n’étaient pas si lourds. – I would send you all the books if they weren’t so heavy.

Imperative

Envoie des cartes postales à tes amis. – Send postcards to your friends.
Envoyez-moi les documents. – Send me the documents.
Envoyons ce message à tout le monde. – Let’s send this message to everyone.

Subjunctive

Il faut que tu envoies ton extrait de naissance au consulat. – You must send your birth certificate to the consulate.

Note: renvoyer – ‘to send back’, ‘to dismiss’, ‘to refer to’ – follows the same patterns as envoyer.

With thanks to Elizabeth Allen