To rain in French 🇫🇷

pleuvoir info.

To remember “pleuvoir,” you might think of the phrase “It’s pouring.” Both “pouring” and “pleuvoir” start with a ‘p’ and refer to precipitation. Visually, you might imagine rain droplets forming the shape of the letter ‘P’ as they fall.

“Pleuvoir” is an impersonal verb in French, meaning it is only used with the impersonal subject “il,” which doesn’t translate to “he” in this case but rather to “it” as in “it’s raining.”

Other words that mean the same thing:

– “Il tombe de la pluie” – a more literal way to say “rain is falling.”
– “Il mouille” – a colloquial way to say “it’s raining,” though less common.

Conjugations of “pleuvoir”:

Infinitive: pleuvoir (to rain)

Present indicative:
– Il pleut (It is raining)

Imperfect indicative:
– Il pleuvait (It was raining)

Future simple:
– Il pleuvra (It will rain)

Past historic (literary tense):
– Il plut (It rained)

Conditional:
– Il pleuvrait (It would rain)

Present subjunctive:
– qu’il pleuve (that it rain)

Imperfect subjunctive (literary tense):
– qu’il plût (that it rained)

Past participle:
– plu

Compound past (past perfect):
– Il a plu (It has rained)

Examples of sentences:

– Il pleut, prends ton parapluie. (It’s raining, take your umbrella.)
– Hier soir, il pleuvait fort. (Last night, it was raining hard.)
– Selon la météo, il pleuvra demain. (According to the weather forecast, it will rain tomorrow.)
– Si il pleuvait, nous resterions à la maison. (If it were raining, we would stay home.)
– Qu’il pleuve ou qu’il fasse soleil, je sortirai. (Whether it rains or the sun shines, I will go out.)

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