[Originally posted on 12/13/18 on the Duolingo French for English speakers forum by Sitesurf]
Conjugations
As you learned in “Basics 1”, verbs like parler conjugate to agree with their subjects. Parler itself is an infinitive, which is a verb base form. It consists of a root (parl-) and an ending (-er). The ending can dictate how the verb should be conjugated. In this case, almost all verbs ending in -er are regular verbs in the 1st Group that share the same conjugation pattern. To conjugate another 1st Group verb, affix the ending to that verb’s root.
- Aimer (“to love”): j’aime, tu aimes, nous aimons, etc.
- Marcher (“to walk”): je marche, tu marches, nous marchons, etc.
Every verb belongs to one of three groups:
- The 1st Group includes regular -er verbs and includes 80% of all verbs.
- The 2nd Group includes regular -ir verbs like finir (‘to finish”).
- The 3rd Group includes all irregular verbs. This includes many common verbs like être and avoir as well as a handful of less common conjugation patterns.
| Subject | G1: parler | G2: finir | G3: dormir |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | parle | finis | dors |
| tu | parles | finis | dors |
| il/elle/on | parle | finit | dort |
| nous | parlons | finissons | dormons |
| vous | parlez | finissez | dormez |
| ils/elles | parlent | finissent | dorment |
Aller (“to go”) is the only fully irregular verb in Group 1, but a handful of others are slightly irregular.
Spelling-changing verbs end in -ger (e.g. manger) or -cer (e.g. lancer, “to throw”) and change slightly in the nous form, as well as any other form whose ending begins with an A or O. These verbs take a form like nous mangeons or nous lançons.
Stem-changing verbs have different roots in their nous and vous forms. For instance, most forms of appeler (“to call”) have two L’s (e.g. j’appelle), but the N/V forms are nous appelons and vous appelez.
Pronunciation
There is a temptation to pronounce all the letters when first encountering the various conjugations, but it would be a mistake. Often the final consonants are silent at the end of words. For example, the verb “parler” in je parle, tu parles, il/elle parle, ils/elles parlent sounds exactly the same [paʁl]. In fact, il parle and ils parlent are perfect homophones, as well as elle parle and elles parlent. The third person plural ending, -ent, is always silent.
However, the ending “-ent” found at the end of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs is not silent and is pronounced [ɑ̃]. For example: vêtement [vɛtmɑ̃], content [kɔ̃tɑ̃], and souvent [suvɑ̃].
Infinitives after conjugations.
The infinitive is the non-conjugated form of a verb. It does not need a specific subject and it has several uses: as a noun, as a soft command, in interrogative or exclamatory phrases, and other uses that will be developed in further lessons.
For now, we will focus on the use of an infinitive directly after a conjugated verb. There are about thirty French verbs which can be directly followed by another verb in the infinitive.
The most frequent of them are:
Verbs of appreciation: aimer, adorer, désirer, détester, préférer
- J’aime/Je déteste/Je préfère danser. — I like/I hate/I prefer dancing.
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Selected comments on original post
Comment: Saying “Je deteste” or I hate in france is not ok. They arent very happy with it.
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