French Si Clauses: The 3 Types, Tense Chart and Examples

A si clause is an if sentence, and French pairs its tenses in three fixed types. Choose how real the condition is, and both tenses are decided.

The glosses: If it rains, I will stay. If I had time, I would come. If I had known, I would have come.

Each step along the scale takes the condition one notch further from reality. None of the three puts a future or a conditional after si.

Type 1: real and likely

The condition could really happen. After si, the present; in the result, the present, the future or a command.

Si shortens to s' before il and ils only:

1234

1. 1s'il fait chaud
2. 2s'il pleut
3. 3s'il neige
4. 4s'il y a du vent

If it is hot, if it rains, if it snows, if it is windy: si becomes s' before il.

• S'il fait beau, nous irons à la plage. - If it is nice, we will go to the beach.
• Si elle vient, je reste. - If she comes, I'm staying. (no elision before elle)
• Si on part maintenant, on arrivera à l'heure. - If we leave now, we will arrive on time. (none before on)

The golden rule: no future or conditional after si

English sometimes slips a will or a would into its if-clause. Standard French does not: the future and the conditional live in the result.

If you catch yourself putting a future or a conditional (je serai, j'aurais) straight after si, stop. The one exception is the si that means whether, further down.

The halves can swap places, and the tenses stay put. Only the comma goes:

• Je viendrais si j'avais le temps. - I would come if I had time.

Type 2: the unreal present

The condition is not true now: you are imagining. After si, the imparfait; in the result, the conditional.

• Si j'avais le temps, je viendrais. - If I had time, I would come. (I don't have time)
• Si tu étais riche, qu'est-ce que tu ferais ? - If you were rich, what would you do?
• Si elle parlait italien, elle travaillerait à Rome. - If she spoke Italian, she would work in Rome.

It is English if I had... I would... exactly. The imparfait here says nothing about the past: it marks the condition as unreal.

Type 3: the unreal past

The condition did not happen: you are rewriting the past, which makes this the pattern of regret. After si, the plus-que-parfait; in the result, the past conditional.

The past conditional is the conditional of avoir or être plus the past participle, with the same auxiliary as the passé composé:

Put the two halves together:

• Si j'avais su, je serais venu. - If I had known, I would have come.
• Si tu m'avais écouté, tu n'aurais pas fait cette erreur. - If you had listened to me, you would not have made that mistake.
• Si nous étions partis plus tôt, nous serions arrivés à l'heure. - If we had left earlier, we would have arrived on time.

Si j'avais su is worth learning whole: it is the everyday French for had I known. The full past conditional is on the conditionnel passé page.

Si meaning whether

When si asks an indirect question, it means whether, and the golden rule does not apply. The future and the conditional are both fine after it:

• Je ne sais pas si elle viendra. - I don't know whether she will come.
• Il m'a demandé si je viendrais. - He asked me whether I would come.
• Je me demande si nous aurons le temps. - I wonder whether we will have time.

The test: swap if for whether in the English. If the meaning survives, it is the whether-si, and the tense is free.

Si or quand?

English puts a present after both if and when. French does it only after si. After quand, a future event takes the future:

The glosses: If you come, we will go to the cinema. When you come, we will go to the cinema.

Mistakes English speakers make

The last row is about a future visit, where careful French wants the future; quand tu viens is right for a habit (whenever you come), and in casual speech you will also hear it for a plan.

What to do next

1. Finish S'il pleut demain, ... three ways: present, future, command.
2. Say what you would do si j'étais riche.
3. Say one regret with si j'avais su.