20 January 2023

French culture is all around us, especially in Melbourne. You may have visited the Chanel exhibition at the NGV last year, immersed yourself in the captive world of Monet & friends at the Lume, or watched a French film at Palace Cinemas.

Did you know that speaking French will guarantee you a much deeper understanding of French culture? Indeed, this is one of the 5 top reasons to learn French.

As a Francophile (a person who loves French language & culture), you may have started to learn how to conjugate aimer (to love) in the language of love. To put you on the right path to becoming a Francophone (a person who speaks French fluently), let's explore French conjugation!

Complete beginner in French? Sign up to a Beginner 1 French class! Complete beginner in French? Sign up to a Beginner 1 French class!

4 facts about French conjugation

1. French verbs are not like English verbs; they are formed with just a single (stem) word and different endings, depending on:

• the person (I, we, they),
• the tense (past, present or future)
• the mood

English verbs on the other hand, often employ two words to express the tense and the person, for example: I am going, they were going, she has gone, you must go, he will go, I would go or I should have gone.. 

2. There are regular and irregular verbs and two auxiliary verbs avoir (to have) and être (to be),

3. Regular verbs fall into three groups based on the ending of their infinitives: 

• 1st group: verbs ending in -er (except aller, envoyer, and renvoyer).
• 2nd group: verbs ending in -ir
• 3rd group: verbs ending in -re (with the exception of irregular verbs).

4. The GOOD news is more than 80% of French verbs belong to the first group, which means once you know the pattern of conjugation in the present tense, you can conjugate most French verbs!

Dive deeper into French grammar and conjugation with AFM courses Dive deeper into French grammar and conjugation with AFM courses

Let's conjugate

Below are some examples of verbs conjugated in the present tense:

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