Conjugate Rendre: Your ULTIMATE Guide (French Verb)

Understanding French verbs, a cornerstone of mastering the language, requires grasping concepts like verb conjugation. Mastering conjugate rendre, meaning ‘to give back’ or ‘to return,’ is a crucial step in your French language journey. Académie française, the authoritative council for matters pertaining to the French language, indirectly influences how we learn and teach verb conjugations, including conjugate rendre. Practicing with a reliable conjugation tool makes this process significantly easier.

Conjugate Rendre: Your ULTIMATE Guide to this French Verb

This guide provides a complete breakdown of how to conjugate the French verb rendre, which means "to give back," "to return," or "to make." Mastering rendre conjugations is essential for fluent French communication.

Understanding the Basics of Rendre

Before diving into conjugations, let’s cover the core meaning and grammatical group of rendre.

Meaning and Usage

Rendre is a versatile verb with several common meanings:

• To give back/return: Je dois rendre ce livre à la bibliothèque. (I have to return this book to the library.)
• To make: Ce film me rend triste. (This movie makes me sad.)
• To render/translate: Comment rendre cette phrase en anglais? (How do you render this sentence in English?)
• To go to a place: Je me rends au bureau. (I’m going to the office – reflexive usage)

Understanding the context is crucial to interpreting the correct meaning of rendre.

Verb Group

Rendre is a regular –re verb. This classification is important because it follows a predictable pattern for conjugation, which we will explore in detail.

Indicative Mood

The indicative mood is used to express factual information or certainties. Here’s how to conjugate rendre in different indicative tenses:

Present Tense (Présent)

Pronoun	Conjugation	Translation (I…)
Je	rends	give back/return/make
Tu	rends	give back/return/make
Il/Elle/On	rend	gives back/returns/makes
Nous	rendons	give back/return/make
Vous	rendez	give back/return/make
Ils/Elles	rendent	give back/return/make

Imperfect Tense (Imparfait)

The imperfect describes ongoing or habitual actions in the past.

Pronoun	Conjugation	Translation (I used to…)
Je	rendais	give back/return/make
Tu	rendais	give back/return/make
Il/Elle/On	rendait	give back/return/make
Nous	rendions	give back/return/make
Vous	rendiez	give back/return/make
Ils/Elles	rendaient	give back/return/make

Future Tense (Futur Simple)

The future simple expresses actions that will happen in the future.

Pronoun	Conjugation	Translation (I will…)
Je	rendrai	give back/return/make
Tu	rendras	give back/return/make
Il/Elle/On	rendra	give back/return/make
Nous	rendrons	give back/return/make
Vous	rendrez	give back/return/make
Ils/Elles	rendront	give back/return/make

Past Historic (Passé Simple)

The past historic is a literary tense, mainly found in formal writing.

Pronoun	Conjugation
Je	rendis
Tu	rendis
Il/Elle/On	rendit
Nous	rendîmes
Vous	rendîtes
Ils/Elles	rendirent

Past Anterior (Passé Antérieur)

The past anterior is used with the past historic to indicate an action that happened immediately before another.

Pronoun	Conjugation	Auxiliary
Je	eus rendu	Avoir
Tu	eus rendu	Avoir
Il/Elle/On	eut rendu	Avoir
Nous	eûmes rendu	Avoir
Vous	eûtes rendu	Avoir
Ils/Elles	eurent rendu	Avoir

Simple Past (Passé Composé)

The simple past expresses completed actions in the past and is formed using the auxiliary verb avoir or être (in this case, avoir) and the past participle rendu.

Pronoun	Conjugation	Auxiliary
Je	ai rendu	Avoir
Tu	as rendu	Avoir
Il/Elle/On	a rendu	Avoir
Nous	avons rendu	Avoir
Vous	avez rendu	Avoir
Ils/Elles	ont rendu	Avoir

Pluperfect (Plus-que-parfait)

The pluperfect describes an action completed before another action in the past.

Pronoun	Conjugation	Auxiliary
Je	avais rendu	Avoir
Tu	avais rendu	Avoir
Il/Elle/On	avait rendu	Avoir
Nous	avions rendu	Avoir
Vous	aviez rendu	Avoir
Ils/Elles	avaient rendu	Avoir

Future Perfect (Futur Antérieur)

The future perfect expresses an action that will be completed before a specific point in the future.

Pronoun	Conjugation	Auxiliary
Je	aurai rendu	Avoir
Tu	auras rendu	Avoir
Il/Elle/On	aura rendu	Avoir
Nous	aurons rendu	Avoir
Vous	aurez rendu	Avoir
Ils/Elles	auront rendu	Avoir

Subjunctive Mood (Subjonctif)

The subjunctive mood expresses doubt, uncertainty, wishes, or emotions.

Present Subjunctive (Subjonctif Présent)

Pronoun	Conjugation
Je	rende
Tu	rendes
Il/Elle/On	rende
Nous	rendions
Vous	rendiez
Ils/Elles	rendent

Past Subjunctive (Subjonctif Passé)

Pronoun	Conjugation	Auxiliary
Je	aie rendu	Avoir
Tu	aies rendu	Avoir
Il/Elle/On	ait rendu	Avoir
Nous	ayons rendu	Avoir
Vous	ayez rendu	Avoir
Ils/Elles	aient rendu	Avoir

Imperfect Subjunctive (Subjonctif Imparfait)

Pronoun	Conjugation
Je	rendisse
Tu	rendisses
Il/Elle/On	rendît
Nous	rendissions
Vous	rendissiez
Ils/Elles	rendissent

Pluperfect Subjunctive (Subjonctif Plus-que-parfait)

Pronoun	Conjugation	Auxiliary
Je	eusse rendu	Avoir
Tu	eusses rendu	Avoir
Il/Elle/On	eût rendu	Avoir
Nous	eussions rendu	Avoir
Vous	eussiez rendu	Avoir
Ils/Elles	eussent rendu	Avoir

Conditional Mood (Conditionnel)

The conditional mood expresses hypothetical or conditional actions.

Present Conditional (Conditionnel Présent)

Pronoun	Conjugation	Translation (I would…)
Je	rendrais	give back/return/make
Tu	rendrais	give back/return/make
Il/Elle/On	rendrait	give back/return/make
Nous	rendrions	give back/return/make
Vous	rendriez	give back/return/make
Ils/Elles	rendraient	give back/return/make

Past Conditional (Conditionnel Passé)

Pronoun	Conjugation	Auxiliary
Je	aurais rendu	Avoir
Tu	aurais rendu	Avoir
Il/Elle/On	aurait rendu	Avoir
Nous	aurions rendu	Avoir
Vous	auriez rendu	Avoir
Ils/Elles	auraient rendu	Avoir

Imperative Mood (Impératif)

The imperative mood is used to give commands or instructions. Only uses tu, nous, and vous pronouns.

Pronoun	Conjugation	Translation (Let’s…)
Tu	rends	Give back/Return/Make
Nous	rendons	Let’s give back/return/make
Vous	rendez	Give back/Return/Make

Infinitive and Participles

These are non-conjugated forms of the verb.

Infinitive

• Present Infinitive: rendre (to give back, to return, to make)
• Past Infinitive: avoir rendu (to have given back, returned, made)

Participles

• Present Participle: rendant (giving back, returning, making)
• Past Participle: rendu (given back, returned, made)

Reflexive Use of Rendre (Se Rendre)

Rendre can also be used reflexively with the pronoun se, meaning "to go to," "to surrender," or "to make oneself." For example: se rendre compte de (to realize) or se rendre à (to go to). This requires adding a reflexive pronoun before the conjugated verb. Remember to conjugate the verb avoir and not être with rendre in passé composé when se rendre is the phrase.

Here’s an example of the present tense conjugation of se rendre:

Pronoun	Conjugation	Translation (I…)
Je	me rends	go to/surrender
Tu	te rends	go to/surrender
Il/Elle/On	se rend	goes to/surrenders
Nous	nous rendons	go to/surrender
Vous	vous rendez	go to/surrender
Ils/Elles	se rendent	go to/surrender

So, there you have it – a deep dive into conjugate rendre. Now go out there and start using it in your everyday French conversations! Bonne chance!