Suivre is a highly versatile French verb meaning “to follow”. Interestingly, je suis means both “I follow” and “I am”.
suivre
to follow
Word origin
The Modern French verb suivre comes from sequere in Vulgar Latin.
Present tense conjugation
Suivre is an irregular RE verb. The following is the present tense conjugation of suivre. As mentioned, je suis means both “I follow” and “I am”.
Je suis I follow
Tu suis You follow (singular, informal)
Il, elle suit He follows
Nous suivons We follow
Vous suivez You follow (plural, formal)
Ils, elles suivent They follow
Example sentences
This first sentence uses the pronoun on, which means “one” but is used to indicate “we”.
On rentre à la maison ? Je te suis.
Shall we go home? I’ll follow you.
This sentence uses savoir, meaning “to know” for facts.
Je sais que je parle vite. T’as suivi ce que j’ai dit ?
I know that I speak fast. Did you follow what I said?
This sentence is in the imperfect tense, which is used to express “was verb + ing”.
Tu parlais trop vite. Je n’ai pas suivi.
You were speaking too fast. I didn’t follow.
The expression suivre un régime means to be on a diet. Perdu is the past participle of perdre (to lose).
Elle suit un régime et elle a perdu cinq kilos.
She’s on a diet and lost five kilograms.
Finally, the expression “Au suivant !” means “Next!” as in “next in line”.
Au suivant !
Next!
Related lessons
- Être – to be
- Irregular verbs
- Pronoun on (one, we, people in general)
- Maison – house
- Trop – Too, too much, too many
- Savoir – to know
- Passé composé
- Imperfect tense
- Perdre – to lose
References
