Hello everybody, after a bit of a break for learning to talk a bit in 25 languages, French on a Windowsill returns! And this time, I bring you regular verbs. Along with some useful grammar hints about verbs, conjugation and stem + ending, you will get to know the 3 groups of regular verbs in French.
Here are your reference materials:
Regular verbs that end in -er
These are pretty common, and the conjugation is fairly conistent as well with a few small exceptions for pronunciation. You follow this ending pattern:
Regular verbs that end in -ir
What's interesting here is that in the first three conjugations you actually chop a letter off the stem, but then it comes back. If your stem ends in a vowel then you add a double s in the last three conjugations (for example with the verb finir). Here is the pattern:
Regular verbs that end in -re
The third group does have a regular conjugation, but do spend some time hugging the dictionary or Bescherelle* because a lot of verbs that end in -re are irregular. Need I say être or faire? But don't be disheartened, because knowing the regular conjugation means you couldn't go too wrong even if you tried:
Some of the vocab featured in this episode:
chanter (to sing)
aimer (to love)
manger (to eat)
commencer (to start)
tutoyer (to be on "tu" terms)
dormir (to sleep)
finir (to finish)
attendre (to wait)
déscendre (to descend, to come down)
Let me know what you think of the episode, as always I hope that this is useful stuff and I'm really looking forward to any feedback you guys might have.
*You may have noticed the link to the Bescherelle leads you to Book Depository. This is an online bookstore fit to rival the big A in many ways, often their prices are in fact lower, and international delivery is largely free. Click on the little link above if you want to support French on a Windowsill as an Affiliate.