« T'inquiètes » ou « t'inquiète » ?

Question

For the phrase « ne t'inquiète(s) pas », more precisely for the verb « s'inquiéter », do you conjugate the verb as « t'inquiètes » or « t'inquiète » for « tu » ?

The reason I ask this, is because I seem to be finding some inconsistency as to which is used on the web. Reverso says for "Don't worry":

Where I'm seeing it conjugated correctly for « vous » but « tu » is looking more like that of « je ».

This conjugation site on the other hand is saying « tu ne t'inquiètes pas » which follows more as I would of thought:

So my question is, what is the correct way of conjugating « s'inquiéter » for the phrase « ne t'inquiète(s) pas » ?

EDIT: I just realised too, how come the accent on the e changes for everything but « nous » and
« vous » to accent grave instead of accent aigu ?

Answer 1

The imperative form is "ne t'inquiète pas", no "s" needed, that would be an error. I think you are confusing the imperative and indicative moods, which in French follow different conjugation rules.

Present imperative - 2nd person singular: no "s" with regular verbs ending with "-er"

Ne t'inquiète pas

Present indicative - 2nd person singular: "s" with regular verbs ending with "-er"

Tu ne t'inquiètes pas

Answer 2

Good answers already concerning the mood, which was imperative and not indicative. No need to expand for too long, the S is dropped from the second singular person final for the verbs in -ER in this mood.

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I’ll concentrate on your question about the accents varying for every person but nous and vous in the indicative present. It has to do with the pronunciation. When the T-sound is the last one in a conjugation of this verb (we except the E caduc), the É-sound¹ preceeding it turns into an È-sound², and the accent is changed accordingly. French in general doesn’t have very many cases (if any) of words ending with the É-sound + a consonnant³.

• Inquiéter is pronounced [ɛ̃.kje.te], and the T-sound doesn’t complete the enunciation of the word.

• Je m’inquiète is pronounced [ʒə.mɛ̃.kjɛt] (also [ʒə.mɛ̃.kjɛtə] in some areas or circumstances), and the last sound of the word is a T (or a caduc E).

Though there are variations in the way É and È are pronounced, this verb follows the general trend.

A few of the other verbs behaving the same way, with various consonants following the É: abréger (soft G), céder, légiférer, léguer (hard G).

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¹ [e] in the international phonetic alphabet.

² [ɛ] in the international phonetic alphabet.

³ _{Possible exceptions:}

• _{Words borrowed from English: email [iːmel] (the neologism courriel is however consistently gaining popularity), freight and brace are commonly borrowed as is in Quebec, but I don’t think they are common in France.}

• _{Some words pronounced in a very familiar tone in some areas of Quebec, perhaps also elsewhere: père, mère, frère, bière can become [peʁ], [meʁ], [fʁeʁ], [bjeʁ] when spoken out loud.}

Answer 3

When you use the expression (ne) t'inquiète (pas) (no 's' here), the used mood is called impératif in French :

• inquiète-toi
• inquiétons-nous
• inquiétez-vous

In this case, we don't use the mood indicatif (as you said):

• je m'inquiète
• tu t'inquiètes
• il s'inquiète
• nous nous inquiétons
• vous vous inquiétez
• ils s'inquiètent

So here we use the negation of inquiète-toi which is ne t'inquiète pas and became t'inquiète.