Language/French/Grammar/Verb-forms-—-Conjugations

Verb forms — Conjugations

For the purposes of systematic presentation, French verbs are best grouped into four conjugations.

These are:

1. Verbs whose infinitive ends in -er (e.g. donner, chanter, parler). This is by far the largest group.
2. Verbs whose infinitive ends in -ir. Within this group there are two subgroups:
   1. verbs whose stems sometimes end in -iss- (e.g. finir: fin-iss-ons, fin-issant, fin-iss-aient, etc.);
   2. verbs whose stems do not add -iss- (e.g. dormir, mentir).
3. Verbs whose infinitive ends in -re (e.g. vendre, rendre).
4. Verbs whose infinitive ends in -oir (e.g. recevoir).

Verbs which differ from this pattern are included in the list of irregular verbs.

Related Lessons

• Plurals of nouns ending in eu, au, eau
• tard versus en retard
• Location of adverbs modifying adjectives, prepositions, noun phrases and other adverbs
• Omission of the article in compound nouns linked by à
• y and en in French where the English translation has no preposition
• Plural forms of adjectives — Adjectives which end in al
• Omission of the article with nouns following the verbs être, demeurer, devenir, élire, nommer, rester
• Use of en
• Masculine Nouns Ending in ée
• Use of the definite article with names of countries, regions, départements
• Plurals of nouns ending in –al
• Days
• Indirect and Direct Transitive Verbs
• Differences in the use of numbers in French and English Order of cardinal numbers and adjectives
• Conjugation group 2 — verbs whose infinitive ends in —ir