Present Tense of Regular Verbs Ending ‘-er’

Regular verbs in French fall into one of three categories, depending on their ending. There are -er verbs, such as jouer (‘to play’), -re verbs, such as attendre (‘to wait’); and -ir verbs such as finir (‘to finish’). The biggest group is the -er verbs, covered in this lesson.

What is a verb stem?

The part of a word that relays its actual meaning is called the stem. In the case of verbs, therefore, the stem is derived by removing any additional endings that are conveying other information. For regular verbs in French, removing the -er, -ir or -re from the infinitive form will often provide the stem, as illustrated below:

What are the present tense endings for -er verbs in French?

One you have derived the stem, the verb needs to ‘agree’ according to the person carrying out the action. Regular -er verbs take the following endings, which are then added to the stem, to create the present tense:

Let’s check this out in practice, with the verb jouer, ‘to play,’ where the endings have been highlighted:

What are common -er verbs in French?

Common -er verbs in French, which work in the same way as above, include: