Present Tense -ER Verbs: The Foundation of French Grammar

Getting Started

In every language, verbs change with the subject: I speak, she speaks. French does the same, more often, and this is called conjugation. The good news: about nine in ten French verbs end in -ER, and almost all of them follow one pattern. Learn parler and you can use danser, manger, regarder, travailler, habiter and hundreds more.

The one question: who is doing it? Only the subject changes the ending. The French present covers “I speak”, “I am speaking” and “I do speak”, so you never need a second verb.

By the end you can:

• conjugate any regular -ER verb in the present;
• hear which forms sound different (only nous and vous);
• handle the spelling changes in manger, commencer, acheter, préférer, appeler.

Connection: in Everyday Greetings and Phrases you met je m’appelle, which is the -ER verb appeler, with one of the spelling changes in section 5.

1 Infinitive and Stem

Remove -er from the infinitive; what is left is the stem.

2 The Pattern: PARLER (to speak)

What you hear: je parle, tu parles, il parle and ils parlent all sound the same, “parl”, because -e, -es, -e, -ent are silent. Only nous parlons and vous parlez sound different. In speech the subject tells you who; in writing the ending must be right.

Before a vowel, je becomes j’: j’aime, j’habite, j’écoute, j’étudie.

3 More -ER Verbs

4 One Present for Three English Tenses

English has I work, I am working and I do work. French has one form for all three:

• Je travaille à Brampton. (I work in Brampton.)
• Je travaille, je te rappelle ! (I’m working, I’ll call you back!)
• Tu travailles demain ? (Are you working tomorrow?) The present also covers a near, planned future.
• J’habite ici depuis deux ans. (I have been living here for two years.) With depuis, see the depuis lesson.

Never add être: “I am working” is je travaille, not je suis travaille. To stress “right now”, French has je suis en train de travailler, but the plain present is the everyday answer.

5 Where the Simple Rule Breaks: Spelling Changes

The endings never change. What changes in a few verbs is the spelling of the stem, and it follows a pattern: the change is in je, tu, il/elle and ils/elles, never in nous or vous (or the reverse for -ger / -cer, which change only in nous).

• aller ends in -er but is irregular: je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont. See Aller, Faire, Venir.
• Learn acheter, préférer, appeler by their je and nous forms together: j’achète / nous achetons.

6 Real Examples

About yourself

• Je m’appelle Harpreet. (My name is Harpreet.)
• Je parle français et punjabi. (I speak French and Punjabi.)
• J’habite à Montréal. (I live in Montreal.)
• Je travaille comme ingénieur. (I work as an engineer.)

Asking others

• Tu parles français ? (Do you speak French?)
• Où est-ce que tu habites ? (Where do you live?)
• Vous travaillez ici ? (Do you work here?)

In a group

• Nous parlons français ensemble. (We speak French together.)
• Ils regardent la télévision. (They are watching television.)

Common Mistakes

Practice

A. Conjugate. Write the missing word

B. Spelling changes. Write the missing word

C. Negative and questions. Write the missing word

Your Turn

Task (TEF/TCF speaking, Présentez-vous): introduce yourself and describe a normal day. Use at least six different -ER verbs (habiter, travailler, commencer, manger, regarder, écouter, étudier, préparer…). Speak for 50–70 words.

Moving Forward

• Present Tense -IR Verbsfinir and partir, two families.
• Present Tense -RE Verbsvendre, attendre, répondre.
• Être and Avoirand Aller, Faire, Venir: the irregular verbs you need every day.
• Negationje ne travaille pas.

Practise it with the Present Tense Conjugation Drill.