Freanch Verbs Introduction

Verbs

Verbs in French is where it gets a bit tricky. However, most of them follow a similar formular. As an introduction, we will look a verb conjuagation.

If you recall subject pronuouns:

Pronoun	Translation	Pronunciation
je	I	zhe
tu	You (informal)	to
il	He	ill
elle	She	el
nous	We	nu
vous	You (formal/plural)	vhu
ils	They (masculine)	ill
elles	They (feminine)	el

Verb conjugation makes use of these pronouns

The Formula :

The formula is better explained with an example. Let’s take the verb parler - to speak

1. Remove the ending (er for parler)
2. Add ending relating to subject pronoun

For parler the ending would be -e, -es, -e, -ons , -ez and -ent respectively

• je parle
• tu parles
• il parle
• elle parle
• nous parlons
• vous parlez
• ils parlent
• elles parlent

Three Main Groups of Verbs

The next thing to remember is the 3 main groupes of verbes - groupes based on their endigs: -er, -ir, -re.

Their endings will guide most of the conjugation you will do in French. We have looked at the endings for -er verbs. The other ones are:

• -IR: -is, -is, -it, -issons, -issez, -issent
• -RE: -s, -s, _, -ons, -ez, -ent

Pronoun	ER: Parler	IR: Finir	RE: Perdre
je	parle	finis	perds
tu	parles	finis	perds
il	parle	finit	perd
elle	parle	finit	perd
nous	parlons	finissons	perdons
vous	parlez	finissez	perdez
ils	parlent	finissent	perdent
elles	parlent	finissent	perdent