Pronominal verbs: reciprocal & idiomatic meanings

Ils se voient tous les jours.They see each other every day.

You already know reflexive pronominal verbs for actions done to oneself — se laver, se lever. The same se form does two more jobs: it can mean each other between multiple people, and it shows up in a whole family of verbs whose meaning has drifted away from the base verb entirely.

Quick shortcut: the same se covers "myself," "each other," and, in a fixed set of verbs, a meaning you just have to learn — se rendre compte doesn't mean "to render oneself an account."

Reciprocal meaning: each other

With a plural subject, a pronominal verb can describe an action people do to one another, not to themselves:

• Nous nous téléphonons souvent. (We call each other often.)
• Elles se sont rencontrées au café. (They met each other at the café.)
• Vous vous écrivez encore ? (Do you two still write to each other?)

Telling reflexive and reciprocal apart

Out of context, a sentence like Ils se lavent is ambiguous: it could mean "they wash themselves" (reflexive) or "they wash each other" (reciprocal). When it matters, French disambiguates with l'un l'autre (reciprocal) or eux-mêmes/elles-mêmes (reflexive):

• Ils se lavent l'un l'autre. (They wash each other.)
• Ils se lavent eux-mêmes. (They wash themselves.)

If the verb itself needs a preposition (parler à, téléphoner à, sourire à), that preposition slots into the middle of the phrase: l'un à l'autre, not just l'un l'autre:

• Ils se parlent l'un à l'autre. (They talk to each other.) — because parler à quelqu'un.

Idiomatic pronominal verbs: a different meaning entirely

Some pronominal verbs aren't reflexive or reciprocal at all — their meaning simply isn't what the base verb plus "oneself" would suggest:

• se rendre compte — to realize (rendre alone means "to give back/render")
• s'entendre (bien/mal) avec quelqu'un — to get along (well/badly) with someone (entendre alone means "to hear")
• se passer de — to do without (passer alone means "to pass/happen")
• s'en aller — to leave, go away (a set expression, distinct in feel from plain partir)
• se douter de — to suspect, have an inkling (⚠️ douter alone means "to doubt" — close to the opposite sense; see Common mistakes below)
• se débrouiller — to manage, get by
• s'apercevoir de — to notice, realize (apercevoir alone means "to catch sight of")

These simply need to be learned as their own vocabulary items — trying to derive their meaning from the base verb usually leads you astray.

Agreement in the passé composé: direct vs. indirect se

Pronominal verbs always take être in compound tenses, and the past participle usually agrees with se — because se is normally acting as a preceding direct object, the same agreement rule you already know:

• Elle s'est levée. (She got up.) — se is the direct object of lever.
• Ils se sont vus. (They saw each other.) — se is the direct object of voir.

But when the verb's own grammar takes an indirect object with à — parler à, téléphoner à, écrire à, sourire à, plaire à, nuire à — se is an indirect object instead, and the participle stays invariable:

• Ils se sont téléphoné. (They called each other.) — never ❌ téléphonés; se stands for à eux, not a direct object.
• Elles se sont parlé. (They talked to each other.) — never ❌ parlées.

And when there's a separate direct object placed after the verb, se becomes indirect ("to oneself") and, again, no agreement:

• Elle s'est lavée. (She washed [herself].) — agrees; se is the direct object.
• Elle s'est lavé les mains. (She washed her hands.) — no agreement; les mains is the direct object, coming after the verb, so se here means "to herself" and isn't what the participle agrees with.

This same postposed-direct-object pattern catches out one of the idiomatic verbs from above: se rendre compte has its own built-in noun object, compte, so it follows the same rule — Elle s'est rendu compte de son erreur (never ❌ rendue), exactly like s'est lavé les mains.

Idiomatic pronominal verbs where se isn't really a separate object at all — se souvenir, s'en aller, se moquer de, s'évanouir — simply agree with the subject every time, no analysis needed:

• Elle s'est souvenue de son enfance. (She remembered her childhood.)
• Ils se sont moqués de lui. (They made fun of him.)

Common mistakes

• ❌ Je me doute qu'il a raison to mean "I doubt he's right" → ✅ se douter que actually means "to suspect (that something is true)" — Je me doute qu'il a raison means "I suspect he's right," close to the opposite of plain douter ("Je doute qu'il ait raison" = "I doubt he's right").
• ❌ Ils se sont téléphonés. → ✅ Ils se sont téléphoné. (téléphoner à quelqu'un — se is an indirect object here, so no agreement)
• ❌ Elle s'est lavée les mains. → ✅ Elle s'est lavé les mains. (with a direct object les mains after the verb, se is no longer the direct object — no agreement)
• ❌ Elle s'est rendue compte de son erreur. → ✅ Elle s'est rendu compte de son erreur. (compte is a postposed direct object, same pattern as s'est lavé les mains — no agreement, even though se rendre compte is otherwise a fixed idiomatic phrase)

Quick check

Key takeaways

• The same se used for reflexive verbs also builds reciprocal meaning ("each other") with a plural subject: se voir, se téléphoner, se parler.
• When context doesn't make it clear, l'un l'autre (or l'un à l'autre, if the verb needs a preposition) marks reciprocal meaning; eux-mêmes/elles-mêmes marks reflexive.
• A closed set of pronominal verbs is purely idiomatic — se rendre compte, s'entendre avec, se douter de, se passer de — and needs to be learned as vocabulary, not derived from the base verb.
• The past participle agrees with se when it's a direct object (elle s'est levée), but stays invariable when se is an indirect object — either because the verb itself takes à (ils se sont téléphoné) or because a separate direct object follows the verb (elle s'est lavé les mains).
• Purely idiomatic pronominal verbs (se souvenir, s'en aller, se moquer de) always agree with the subject — there's no separate object analysis to do.