2. What is a verb?
Verbs are words that describe actions.
Like the commercial says, verbs are “what
you do”.
They consist of two parts:
a stem + a verb ending
Verbs can either be in the infinitive form or
the conjugated form. The infinitive form is
the raw form of the verb, all English
infinitives start with “to”.
3. Why do we conjugate?
However, you can not use the infinitive form in a
sentence:
He to play soccer today.
What’s wrong with the above sentence?
He plays soccer today/ He is playing soccer today.
TO CONJUGATE A VERB YOU CHANGE THE VERB
TO MATCH A GIVEN SUBJECT.
French infinitives typically end in either –er, -ir or –re .
When we conjugate a French verb we take off the last
two letters and add different ones.
Il jouer (=to play) au foot.
Il joue au foot = He plays or is playing soccer.
4. Many French verbs ending in –er
follow a regular pattern
The verb jouer (to play) is conjugated below.
You will have to memorize which verbs ending in –er in
the infinitive follow the “normal” pattern of conjugation,
meaning you can just take the –er ending off the infinitive
and add the following endings to the stem:
jouer(to play)
je joue nous jou ons
tu joues vous jou ez
il,elle,on joue ils,elles jou ent
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/gr/ver1.html
5. Some verbs ending in –er are
stem-changing
This means that there will be slight changes
taking place in the stem of the verb:
appeler (to call)
j’ appelle nous appelons
tu appelles vous appelez
il,elle,on appelle ils,elles appellent
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/gr/ver2.html
6. Practice makes Perfect!
The only way to learn verb conjugations is to practice
often, much like you would to learn a piece of music.
The link below brings to an excellent website where you
can practice all French verbs, and gives you helpful
comparisons to English verbs:
http://www.conjuguemos.com
