Chapitre Trois
-ER Verbs
Exercice 3.1 - 3.4
-ER Verbs
When you look up a verb in the French dictionary, you will be given its infinitive form. In English, infinitives always start with “to” (to walk, to dance, to play, etc). In French, the infinitive is determined by the ending of the verb, and there are three categories: -ER, -RE, or -IR. Here is a list of common -ER verbs.
Les verbes –ER: -ER verbs
To make a verb “work” in a sentence, we must take it out of its infinitive form and conjugate it. Essentially, we are manipulating the verb so it says “someone does something” rather than “to do something.”
-ER verbs are very common in French, and they are the easiest set of verbs to manage. We’ll start here.
In French, each category (1st, 2nd, 3rd person singular and plural) has its own conjugation, or change in the spelling at the end of the word. To conjugate regular –ER verbs in the present tense, take off the “–er” and add the appropriate ending, based on the subject (the do-er of the action).
-ER verbs
-ER regular verb endings
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1st person | je –e | nous –ons |
| 2nd person | tu –es | vous –ez |
| 3rd person | il –e
elle –e on –e |
ils –ent
elles –ent |
The ending for 1st person singular is “-e.”
The ending for 2nd person singular is “-es.”
The ending for 3rd person singular is “-e.”
The ending for 1st person plural is “-ons.”
The ending for 2nd person plural is “-ez.”
The ending for 3rd person plural is “-ent.”
An example of conjugation in English is I walk, you walk, he/she/it walks, we walk, you walk, they walk. Note how the “s” ending in English goes with the subject pronouns he, she, and it. It is the only change.
In French, think of each subject pronoun having its own ending when it comes to conjugation. Every now and again, a couple of forms will share an ending, but it is still best to conceptually think of them as different. When you are talking about je (I) and parler (to speak), your verb will have to change to end in -e : Je parle (p-a-r-l-e). When you are talking about tu (you) and parler (to speak), your verb will have to change to end in -es : Tu parles (p-a-r-l-e-s).
To make a sentence negative, put “ne” in front of the conjugated verb and “pas” after it.
I don’t dance = Je ne danse pas.
They don’t travel = Ils ne voyagent pas.
Here are some key things to keep in mind regarding the pronunciation of conjugated verbs:
- all endings except for -ons and -ez are silent
- -ons is pronounced as the nasal õ
- -ez is pronounced like é
- stems that end in “g” take -eons in the nous form so that the “g” is pronounced correctly: nous mangeons
Media Attributions
- Dancing is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
- Cooking is licensed under a CC BY-NC (Attribution NonCommercial) license
to speak
to play
to listen to
to sing
to clean
to wash
to prepare
to dance
to look for
to buy
to work
to study
to rest
to watch/to look at
to attend
to travel
to eat
to share
to tidy/to clean up
we eat (note the –eons ending; this is to keep the "g" pronunciation as "zh" which requires the inclusion of the letter "e")
