French Grammar

Learning to conjugate French verbs in the present tense (le présent de l'indicatif) is one of the very first milestones in any beginner's journey with the language — and one of the most useful, since the present tense covers far more ground in French than "right now." This lesson focuses on the building blocks every learner needs before moving on to more complex tenses.

Most French verbs fall into three regular families, grouped by their infinitive ending. The largest and most common group is -er verbs (like parler, "to speak," or aimer, "to love"), which drop the -er and add -e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent for je, tu, il/elle, nous, vous, and ils/elles respectively. Regular -ir verbs (like finir, "to finish," or choisir, "to choose") follow a different pattern, inserting -iss- before the plural endings, so "nous" becomes finissons and "vous" becomes finissez. Regular -re verbs (like vendre, "to sell") drop the -re and add -s, -s, nothing, -ons, -ez, -ent.

Alongside these regular patterns, a handful of extremely frequent irregular verbs simply have to be memorized, because they don't follow any of the three regular patterns. This lesson highlights four of the most essential: être (to be — je suis, tu es, il/elle est...), avoir (to have — j'ai, tu as, nous avons...), aller (to go — je vais, tu vas, vous allez...), and faire (to do/make — je fais, nous faisons, vous faites...). These four verbs appear constantly in everyday French, including inside common expressions and even other tenses (avoir and être are used to form the passé composé, and aller plus an infinitive forms the near future, "futur proche").

Finally, the lesson touches on when French speakers actually reach for the present tense: for actions happening right now, for habitual or repeated actions, and for general truths or facts — much like English, though French does not distinguish "I speak" from "I am speaking" the way English does; both translate to "je parle."

Zestly creates a set of multiple-choice questions and matching flashcards from this material, letting learners test their recognition of verb endings and irregular forms, then review the same content as quick flashcards for spaced repetition. It's a compact but solid foundation for anyone starting out with French verb conjugation.

• Conjugate regular -er verbs (e.g. parler, aimer) correctly for all six subject pronouns
• Conjugate regular -ir verbs (e.g. finir, choisir) correctly, including the -iss- plural pattern
• Conjugate regular -re verbs (e.g. vendre) correctly for all six subject pronouns
• Recall the present tense forms of the irregular verb être (to be)
• Recall the present tense forms of the irregular verb avoir (to have)
• Recall the present tense forms of the irregular verb aller (to go)
• Recall the present tense forms of the irregular verb faire (to do/make)
• Identify when the present tense is used in French versus other tenses

French verbs are traditionally divided into three groups for conjugation purposes. The first and largest group consists of regular verbs ending in -er (such as parler, manger, and aimer), which make up the vast majority of French verbs and follow a single predictable conjugation pattern in the present tense. The second group comprises regular -ir verbs (such as finir and choisir), which insert the infix -iss- before the plural endings. The third group covers regular -re verbs (such as vendre and attendre). Beyond these three regular groups, French has a set of highly frequent irregular verbs — most notably être, avoir, aller, and faire — that do not follow any of the standard patterns and must be learned individually, since they are used constantly in everyday speech and as auxiliary verbs in compound tenses.