Tense, Mood and VoiceTenseTense is the form a verb takes to indicate a particular time period. Roughly speaking, the Tense indicates whether something happened in the past, the present or the future. The Tense structure of French is quite similar to English, though there is no perfect one-to-one correspondence of one Tense to another. Tenses are simple or compound, depending on whether the tense is indicated by an ending on the verb itself (simple) or by an auxiliary verb (compound).
For complete listings of the different verb tenses in French, consult the tables at the end of your dictionary. 
MoodWhat is called the Mood of verbs is indicated either by their ending or by an auxiliary. While tense indicates the time period of the action referred to by the verb (past, present and future), Mood indicates the status of the action: real, hypothetical, desirable or possible. Four moods are usually distinguished: indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative. These moods are subdivided into different tenses. The INDICATIVE indicates that the action actually did or will take place or that it is taking place now.
The CONDITIONAL indicates that the action might take place or have taken place, or could under certain conditions.
The SUBJUNCTIVE indicates hypothetical reality too, or simply that the speaker is not committing himself as to the reality of the action.
The IMPERATIVE indicates that the speaker wants the action to take place: it is the mood used to give orders. In the Imperative Mood, the subject is normally absent, because it is assumed to be the interlocutor, the person being addressed.
For more on the different moods, check out each one individually.
VoiceVoice refers to whether the verb is active or passive.
Exercises
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