French verb conjugation: the three groups, and why most verbs are easy
French conjugation looks worse than it is. Around 80% of French verbs end in -er and follow one identical pattern, and most of the rest fall into two further groups. The genuinely irregular verbs number a few dozen — and they are the ones you will use constantly, so you will learn them through sheer repetition rather than study.
A pronunciation note that saves a lot of anxiety: in the present tense of -er verbs, je parle, tu parles, il parle and ils parlent are all pronounced identically. Four of the six forms sound the same. The spelling differences matter in writing; your mouth has much less to learn than your eye.
Group 1: -er verbs (the 80%)
Remove -er from the infinitive to get the stem, then add the endings. Parler (to speak) → stem parl-.
- je parleI speak-e
- tu parlesyou speak-es
- il / elle parlehe / she speaks-e
- nous parlonswe speak-ons
- vous parlezyou speak (pl./formal)-ez
- ils / elles parlentthey speak-ent, silent
Group 2: -ir verbs with -iss-
A smaller but very regular group. Finir (to finish) → stem fin-, with -iss- appearing in the plural forms.
- je finisI finish
- tu finisyou finish
- il finithe finishes
- nous finissonswe finish-iss- appears
- vous finissezyou finish
- ils finissentthey finish
Group 3: the irregulars you cannot avoid
This group includes -re verbs and the high-frequency irregulars. There is no point deferring these — être, avoir, aller and faire appear in a huge share of sentences and also act as auxiliaries for other tenses.
- être — je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sontto be
- avoir — j'ai, tu as, il a, nous avons, vous avez, ils ontto have
- aller — je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vontto go
- faire — je fais, tu fais, il fait, nous faisons, vous faites, ils fontto do / make
Mistakes worth avoiding
Je suis 25 ans.
J'ai 25 ans.
French expresses age with avoir — you have years. Direct translation from English produces this error almost universally.
Ils parlent-ent (pronounced)
Ils parlent (silent -ent)
The -ent ending of the third-person plural is never pronounced in -er verbs. Sounding it out is one of the clearest markers of an English speaker.
Questions
Which tense should I learn after the present?
The passé composé, because it covers most spoken past reference in French. It is built from avoir or être plus a past participle, which is another reason to learn those two verbs thoroughly first. The imperfect comes next, and the distinction between the two is one of the genuinely hard parts of French.
Do I need to learn the passé simple?
Only for reading. It appears in literature, journalism and formal history writing, but essentially never in speech. Recognising it is useful; producing it is not, unless you are studying literature.
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