échanger

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French eschangier, from Vulgar Latin *excambiāre (from Latin ex with Late Latin cambiāre).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒe/

• audio

  (file)

Verb

échanger

1. to exchange, to swap

   Ces personnes ont échangé des vues sur la question sans parvenir à se mettre d’accord.

   These people exchanged views on the question without reaching agreement.

   Après avoir échangé quelques politesses, nous en vînmes à l’objet de notre entrevue.

   After having exchanged some pleasantries, we came to the point of our interview.

Conjugation

This is a regular -er verb, but the stem is written échange- before endings that begin with -a- or -o- (to indicate that the -g- is a "soft" /ʒ/ and not a "hard" /ɡ/). This spelling-change occurs in all verbs in -ger, such as neiger and manger.

Conjugation of échanger (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	échanger
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	échangeant /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		échangé /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒe/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	échange /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ/	échanges /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ/	échange /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ/	échangeons /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒɔ̃/	échangez /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒe/	échangent /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ/
	imperfect	échangeais /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒɛ/	échangeais /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒɛ/	échangeait /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒɛ/	échangions /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒjɔ̃/	échangiez /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒje/	échangeaient /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒɛ/
	past historic2	échangeai /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒe/	échangeas /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒa/	échangea /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒa/	échangeâmes /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒam/	échangeâtes /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒat/	échangèrent /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒɛʁ/
	future	échangerai /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁe/	échangeras /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁa/	échangera /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁa/	échangerons /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁɔ̃/	échangerez /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁe/	échangeront /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	échangerais /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁɛ/	échangerais /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁɛ/	échangerait /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁɛ/	échangerions /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒə.ʁjɔ̃/	échangeriez /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒə.ʁje/	échangeraient /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ.ʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	échange /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ/	échanges /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ/	échange /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ/	échangions /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒjɔ̃/	échangiez /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒje/	échangent /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ/
	imperfect2	échangeasse /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒas/	échangeasses /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒas/	échangeât /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒa/	échangeassions /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒa.sjɔ̃/	échangeassiez /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒa.sje/	échangeassent /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	échange /e.ʃɑ̃ʒ/	—	échangeons /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒɔ̃/	échangez /e.ʃɑ̃.ʒe/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Related terms

• échange

Further reading

• “échanger”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.