French conjugation

French conjugation refers to the variation in the endings of French verbs (inflections) depending on the person (I, you, we, etc), tense (present, future, etc) and mood (indicative, imperative and subjunctive). Most verbs are regular and can be entirely determined by their infinitive form (ex. parler) however irregular verbs require the knowledge of more than just the infinitive form known as the principal parts of which there are seven in French. With the knowledge of these seven principal parts of a verb one can conjugate almost all French verbs. However, a handful of verbs, including être, are highly irregular and the seven principal parts are not sufficient to conjugate the verb fully.

French verbs are conventionally divided into three conjugations (conjugaisons) with the following grouping:

  • 1st group: verbs ending in -er (except aller and its derivates).
  • 2nd group: verbs ending in -ir, with the gerund ending in -issant
  • 3rd group: verbs ending in -re (with the exception of irregular verbs).
    • 1st section: verbs ending in -ir, with the gerund ending in -ant
    • 2nd section: verbs ending in -oir.
    • 3rd section: verbs ending in -re
    • aller and its derivates.

The first two groups follow a regular conjugation, whereas the third group is more complex. The third group is considered a closed-class conjugation form,[1] meaning that most new verbs introduced to the French language are of the first group (téléviser, atomiser, radiographier), with the remaining ones being of the second group (alunir).

The verbs aller and its derivates are the only verbs ending in -er belonging to the third group.

  1. ^ Le nouveau Bescherelle: L'art de conjuguer, 1972, pp. 10