On a bright and sunny Sunday morning, I love to have brunch with my children.

As we were indulging on some delightful buttery and flaky croissants last Sunday morning, a funny memory from my university years at McGill came back to me.

One of my composer friends had taken a fancy to my fellow soprano friend Lysandre. He used to ask her out every single day, but she wouldn’t agree so easily. One day, he had the brilliant idea to promise to buy her “croissants de soleil pour le petit déjeuner”  if she agreed to go out with him that night!

And you know what? It worked!!!

Diamond rings and pearl necklaces? Mais non! What a girl really wants is a croissant au beurre or an éclair au chocolat shared without shame with the one she is about to fall in love with!

Here Are 5 Great Tips To Make Promises In French!

Le futur simple: une promesse d’avenir

French has multiple future tenses, and just like in English, they’re used when referring to events that haven’t occurred yet – things that will take place anytime in l’avenir (the future).

So, let’s talk about the future.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to grill you on where you see yourself in 10 years time, who you’ll marry, or how you’ll spend your retirement years. Détendez-vous!

We can simply talk about future topics like the trip you’re planning to the south of France next spring, the football game you’re going to next week or your French self-study session planned for this evening.

To discuss any of these events in daily French conversations and to make promises about what the future could hold, you will need to know how to use le future simple.

How to form “le futur simple” in French?

Use the entire verb as the stem, adding -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont at the end.

1. Other verbs that are conjugated like parler are regular verbs of the second group, verbs ending in –ir like finir (to finish).
2. Regular -re verbs also follow a pattern: simply remove the “e” from the ending of the infinitive and add your future endings.
   - Par exemple: for descendre (to descend, to go down), add the future endings to the stem descendr-, (je descendrai, etc.)

Avoir & Être au futur simple

Être (to be) and avoir (to have) have irregular conjugations in the simple future tense, just as they’re irregular in the present tense.

Notice that with irregular verbs, it’s only the stem that changes – the endings remain the same.

For avoir, the stem is aur-, and for être, it’s ser-.

There are many other verbs that also have irregular conjugations in the future simple tense (meaning the stem changes). When in doubt, I recommend checking the conjugation of a verb using Le conjugueur.

Les promesses de Ginette Reno

Ginette Reno was born in Montréal, Québec, in 1946. She is a Canadian author, composer, singer, and actress. She has received nominations for the Genie and Gemini Awards and is a multi-recipient of the Juno Award.

Reno is a gold and platinum selling artist. She has recorded in both French and English. Her biggest hit in English was her 1970 song “Beautiful Second Hand Man“. Many say that she was meant to have a career similar to Céline Dion’s but sadly, she performed mostly in Quebec. During her four-decade career, she has recorded approximately 60 albums. She has a really powerful voice, juste like Céline!

Read the promises she makes in her famous song “Des croissants de soleil” and watch her performance from 1974. (I couldn’t find a better videoclip, but you will still get the idea!)

I bet you’ll be singing along at the end of the song, on “la la la”! It’s very catchy, you’ll see!

Des croissants de soleil

Toi qui me quittes avec la levée du jour
Et qui me laisses dans l’espoir d’un retour
Pourquoi ne pas faire durer ce matin
Jusqu’à demain?

Je t’offrirai
Des croissants de soleil pour déjeuner
À la saveur de miel et de rosée
Sur un plateau de draps et d’oreillers
Qui fait rêver

J’inventerai
Des recettes de bonheur à volonté
Sur une musique venue d’un ciel de mai
Que tu ne voudras plus jamais quitter
Sans regretter

Puis nous dînerons de paroles et de rêves
Nous goûterons à l’amour et l’eau fraîche
Et puis quand viendra le nouveau matin
On sera si bien

Je t’offrirai
Des croissants de soleil pour déjeuner
À la saveur de miel et de rosée
Sur un plateau de draps et d’oreillers
Qui fait rêver

J’inventerai
Des recettes de bonheur à volonté
Sur une musique venue d’un ciel de mai
Que tu ne voudras plus jamais quitter
Sans regretter

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la
la la la la