French II: Regular Verbs

Regular Verbs

In French, there are three main infinitive families: -er, -ir, and -re. Once you memorize the pattern of endings for the specific infinitive family, you can conjugate any regular verb within that family. Simply drop the infinitive ending and add the appropriate ending for each subject. Table 1 shows the conjugations for regular verbs in the present tense.

TABLE 1

Regular Verb Conjugation

Danser (to dance)	Choisir (to choose)	Rendre (to return)
je dans e	je chois is	je rend s
tu dans es	tu chois is	tu rend s
il/elle/on dans e	il/elle/on chois it	il/elle/on rend
nous dans ons	nous choisiss ons	nous rend ons
vous dans ez	vous choisiss ez	vous rend ez
ils/elles dans ent	ils/elles choisiss ent	ils/elles rend ent

The verb rompre (to break) and other verbs that include rompre in their stems, such as corrompre (to corrupt) and interrompre (to interrupt), add t to the third person singular form: il rompt, il corrompt, il interrompt.