Learn the French present tense verb conjugations with audio recordings. 90% of French verb verbs are regular -er verbs; the -ir and -re verb groups are not all regular.
The present tense is the most common tense in everyday conversations.
Furthermore, when you conjugate French verbs, you often use a present verb form as a basis and then add another tense endings to that basis.
For these two reasons, it’s essential you know the present tense of your French verbs inside out.
Since most students learn their French verb conjugations from books, they often butcher the verb pronunciation… This free lesson comes with audio. If you’re learning French to speak French, the pronunciation is more important than the spelling!
Table of ContentsTo conjugate a verb in the present tense in French, we remove the ending of the verb in the infinitive (so the verb -er, -ir, or -re: it’s call “a stem”) and we add the following written endings to the French subject pronouns.
Play the audio recording to hear how the verb form endings sound. If there is no audio, it means the ending is silent and the verb pronunciation will end on the last letter of its stem (could be a consonant or a vowel sound)…
| Person | Translation | –er Verbs | –ir Verbs | -re Verbs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Je | I | -e | -is | -s |
| Tu | You informal | -es | -is | -s |
| Il Elle On | He / it She / it One /We colloquial | -e | -it | |
| Nous | We formal | -ons | -issons | -ons |
| Vous | Formal / Plural | -ez | -issez | -ez |
| Ils Elles | They | -ent | -issent | -ent |
Yes indeed, there are many silent letters in French verbs this is why learning your French verb conjugations with audio is a must!
If you have to remember one thing of this lesson, let this be it:
| For most regular and irregular verbs in the present tense the je, tu, il, elle, on forms are pronounced exactly the same way. Only the spelling differs! |
Before we dig deep into the various French verb forms, let me explain when we use the present indicative in French, and compare it to English.
The present tense focuses on the now: it can be when the speaker is speaking, an habitual action or a general truth.
This notion is then modified by the grammatical mood. Here is an article about French moods.
In this free French lesson, we will talk about the present tense of the indicative mood.
First, let’s explain the present tense in English.
The present tense in English has 3 forms, each of them having a slightly different variation of the now:
In French, there is only one tense to translate the four English forms.
The French present tense is called “le présent“.
Je parle = I speak, I am speaking, I do speak, I have been speaking.
This is often a big problem for English speakers since you use the progressive form so much in English.
You must be careful to not translate these auxiliary verbs in French “to be” (progressive form) and “do” (emphatic form), but just use the appropriate French verb ending for the tense you wish to express.
I cannot stress enough how important this point is in French: there is no progressive form in French! We don’t differentiate the action we are in the process of doing with the action we usually do.
Now let’s study in the various French verb groups in the present tense.
Verbs in -er follow a conjugation logic based on the infinitive of the verb minus its “er” ending.
What remains of the verb is called ‘the stem’: you add the present tense endings to it and the pronunciation of the stem holds the key to the pronunciation of the verb forms.
Good news! 90% of French verbs end in -er and are perfectly regular: this means that their conjugation pattern is predictable and reliable.
Grammar methods tend to group the -er verbs in what they call the first group.
Let’s take parler (to speak) as our example.
Play the audio recordings and focus on the fact that most verb forms are actually pronounced the same way!
Train your verb memory with short 6-minute drills in 25 different forms and tenses
