Learn French Verbs

In French, there are two kinds of verbs: regular verbs and irregular verbs.  The regular verbs follow a nice set of rules, so they are predictable and easy to learn.  When you’re dealing with regular verbs, you generally know what to expect.

Irregular verbs, on the other hand, are different.  They live by their own set of rules instead of following the “regular” pattern.  For irregular verbs, you have to learn the special rules for each verb in order to conjugate them correctly.

Let’s make this easy by introducing you to the regular verbs first.  Most of the verbs in French end in “-er”. Once you learn how to conjugate regular “-er” verbs, you gain the ability to conjugate tons of French verbs!

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We’ll start with an easy word: parler, which means “to speak”.  To conjugate this verb in the present tense, lop off the “-er” so that all you’re left with is “parl”.   The letters that go after “parl” will depend on what or who you are referring to.

Let’s take a look at how you would conjugate the verb parler:

When you learn French verbs, a good memory device is to make a simple chart of the verb conjugations, like this:

The simple layout is easy on your eyes and helps your brain retain the information at a glance.

Let’s try another easy “-er” verb: aimer, which means “to like” or “to love”.  Remember to chop off the “-er” and add the correct endings:

See how the conjugation of aimer follows the same rules as the conjugation of parler?  This is because they are both regular “-er” verbs.

When you pronounce these words, note that the following verb endings are silent: -e, -es, and -ent.  You do not pronounce these letters when you say “Je parle” or “Ils aiment”.

When you pronounce verbs ending in –ons, you mostly pronounce the ‘o’ – the ‘s’ is totally silent, and the ‘n’ is a very faint nasal sound.

When you pronounce verbs ending in –ez, the ‘z’ is silent, so you only pronounce the ‘e’ so it sounds like “eh” or “ey”.

Now that you understand “-er” verbs, are you ready to meet an irregular verb?

It’s time to introduce you to a verb that you’ll be using quite often when you speak French: être, which means “to be”.  Être does not follow the rules of the regular “-er” verbs when it comes to verb conjugation, so you’ll have pay very close attention:

As you can see, the conjugation for the verb “être” is nothing like the conjugation for regular “-er” verbs! And because “être” is irregular, there are no other verbs that conjugate just like it. “Être” is one of a kind.

It’s easy to learn though, because when you speak French, you will wind up using “être” so often that you will easily commit the verb conjugations to memory.

Since you’ll be using it so much, here’s a quick pronunciation guide for the verb “être”:

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