-ER Verbs

-ER, -IR, RE​

There are three groups of verbs in French.

Verbs are grouped according to the letters the end with.

-ER verbs (verbs ending with ER) belong to group 1

-IR verbs (verbs ending with IR) belong to group 2

-RE verbs (verbs ending with RE) and all other irregular vebrs belong to group 3​

For this level we will focus only on -ER verbs

Parts of a verb

A verb that has not yet been conjugated is called 'l'infinitif' - the infinitive verb.

Conjugation refers to the changes that we make to a verb to make them agree with the subject in a sentence.

​The verb has to parts - Le radical (The root word) and La terminaison (The ending

Can you think about what le radical and la terminaison mean?​

Part of the verb that keeps changing according to the subject.

La terminaison

Part of the verb that doesn't change

​Le radical

Try identifying the ​different parts of the verb 'demander'

Demander​ - To ask

Demand - Le radical : When conjugating this part of the verb will remain the same for all the subjects.

-er - la terminaison - This part changes according to the changing subjects.​

Now try identifying the parts for the following​ verbs

Conjugating ER verbs

STEP 1- To conjugate -ER verbs, you need to first identify the root word.

The simple way of doing that is getting rid of the ending.

Look at the example of the verb 'demander' below:​

Demander - The ending being -ER, the root word is 'demand'

STEP 2- The next step is to add the endings of -ER verbs. These endings keep changing depending on the subject.

​

Subject | Subject

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Endings for -ER verbs​

The endings keep changing depending with the subject. These endings are:

Je - e​ On - e Elles - ent​

Tu - es​ Nous - ons

Il - e Vous - ez

Elle - e​ Ils- ent

Bavarder - To chat

Je bavarde​ Elles bavardent​

Tu bavardes​ Nous bavardons

Il bavarde Vous bavardez

Elle/Il/On bavarde​ Ils bavardent

Conjugating -GER Verbs

When conjugating verbs ending with -GER, we usually retain the "e" when using the pronoun "nous". This is because, without the "e" the word would have a hard "g" sound like in the word go.

Look at the example below:

​

Changer - To eat​

Je mange Nous mangeons

Tu manges Vous mangez

Il/Elle/On mange Ils/Elles mangent​​

*Note that for all ​the pronouns the endings are the same as for all the other -ER verbs learnt previously, but for nous, we have retained the "e"

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-CER verbs

Verbs ending with -CER also undergo changes when using the pronoun "nous"​. They acquire the "cedille" (ç) as shown in the next slide.

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Commencer - to start​

Je commence Nous commençons

Tu commences Vous commencez

Il/Elle/On commence Ils/Elles commencent

​* When the letter "c" in French is followed by "O", without the cedille, the letter makes the sound "K" as in the word cat. The cedille therefore gives the word a soft sound "s"​ as in the word so.

Now attempt the quizziz on conjugation of -ER verbs