French Regular Verbs
Common French verb forms
Before we look at specifics, a couple of basic definitions:- A verb is a word about doing or being, like "to make", "to go", "to be". A properly structured sentence should include a verb as well as identifying who is doing it (the subject).
- The infinitive is the general form of the verb as listed in a dictionary, often used with "to" in front of it in English. It is not specifying any agent like "I" or "she" as the agent. In a way, an infinitive is almost like a noun naming an activity, and is often used with another verb like "want" or "intend", eg "We want to see the 400 metre event."
Regular verbs
Most French verbs follow the pattern shown below for -ER verbs (verbs with infinitives ending in "ER"). In fact, there is only one truly irregular -ER verb: aller (to go). A few others like appeler, jeter etc have some spelling variations. The other "regular" types are the -IR verbs and -RE verbs. Notice that the future tense endings are always the same - eg "ai" with "je", etc, although the stem varies according to the verb type, based on its infinitive.A note about pronouns, verbs and the tenses
- The pronoun subjects are:
je I nous we tu you (sing. or familiar) vous you (plural or formal) il, elle, on he, she, one ils, elles they (masc. & fem.) - The present tense verb is generally a single word - for example il parle may mean "he speaks", "he's speaking" or "he does speak".
- The passé composé is the conversational tense for completed events (the imperfect is used for what may be continuing into the present, including descriptive phrases like "it was raining"). Verbs denoting movement without specifying the accompanying action (so, verbs like "to go" but not "to walk", "to run" or "to jump"), as well as reflexive verbs and some verbs denoting a state or change of state (devenir (to become), naître (to be born) and mourir (to die) use être (to be) as their auxiliary instead of avoir (to have), e.g. J'ai pris le train, but: Je suis arrivé lundi.
- The future tense stem is the infinitive (without the "e" in the case of -RE verbs) in regular verbs, and in irregular verbs it can be worked out from the first person ("je") form. The endings are always (even for irregular verbs) those below. These endings are like the present tense singular forms and the plural endings of the verb avoir:
je -ai nous -ons tu -as vous -ez il, elle, on -a ils, elles -ont
Examples of the regular verb types
| Infinitive | Present tense - singular | Present tense - plural | Passé | Future tense |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| An -ER verb: parler | je parle
tu parles il/elle parle |
nous parlons
vous parlez ils/elles parlent |
j'ai parlé | je parlerai |
| An -IR verb: finir | je finis
tu finis il/elle finit |
nous finissons
vous finissez ils/elles finissent |
j'ai fini | je finirai |
| An -RE verb: vendre | je vends
tu vends il/elle vend |
nous vendons
vous vendez ils/elles vendent |
j'ai vendu | je vendrai |