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📚 This is the overview. « recevoir » is taught level by level — pick your CEFR level below for a full lesson (explanation, pronunciation, exercises & games).
Five phrases with « recevoir » — guess before the reveal. Practise with the free games → Open this short as a page — transcript included →
Recevoir — to receive — is the flagship of the -cevoir family, and its table is a cedilla lesson: the ç appears wherever c meets o or u — je reçois, tu reçois, il reçoit, ils reçoivent, participle reçu — but vanishes before e: nous recevons, vous recevez. Soft c preserved, spelling rule made audible. Futur je recevrai (the -oir verbs drop their oi: recevr-, like devoir’s devr-), imparfait je recevais, subjonctif que je reçoive. The family conjugates as one: apercevoir (catch sight of — j’aperçois), décevoir (to disappoint — the false friend that never means deceive: « tu m’as déçu » = you let me down), concevoir (conceive/design).
Two senses make recevoir daily vocabulary. Receiving things: j’ai reçu ton message / un colis / une réponse — the inbox verb, with « bien reçu ! » as the standard professional acknowledgement. And receiving PEOPLE: « on reçoit des amis ce soir » — French hosts don’t have guests over, they receive them, a verb elevating dinner to ceremony. The noun un reçu (a receipt) is the participle gone shopping, and être reçu à un examen means to PASS it — receiving your success, as the language sees it. Drill the cedilla five times — je reçois, ils reçoivent, j’ai reçu, un reçu, je suis reçu — and this most administrative of charts starts sending you mail.
Ç keeps the c soft before o/u; before e the c is already soft. Je reçois but nous recevons — the cedilla appears exactly where needed, never elsewhere.
No — to disappoint: « ça me déçoit ». The false friend of the family; deceive is tromper. Both hurt, differently.
To pass it — French frames success as being received: « elle a été reçue au concours ». The noun un reçu, meanwhile, is just your shopping receipt.
present, je : ___ (cedilla!) (ç before o)
reçois
nous form (no cedilla): nous ___ (recev-)
recevons
décevoir means to… (false friend) (not deceive)
disappoint
je ___ (Recevoir — present)
reçois
tu ___ (Recevoir — passé composé)
as reçu
il ___ (Recevoir — imperfect)
recevait
nous ___ (Recevoir — future)
recevrons
vous ___ (Recevoir — conditional)
recevriez
Go further: Master the present tense — the full beginner guide.
je reçois, tu reçois, il / elle reçoit, nous recevons, vous recevez, ils / elles reçoivent. Full charts for every tense are above, each form with audio.
reçu — the passé composé is « j’ai reçu ». Recevoir uses avoir as its auxiliary verb.
« je recevrai » — the future stem never changes across persons, only the endings do.
to receive. It is one of the essential French verbs — drill the present first, then the passé composé; those two tenses carry most conversations.
Games built from this exact page — turn what you just read into play:
« recevoir » at every CEFR level — the tense, its forms and the mechanic that makes it stick. Practise it with the free games →