French grammar · A1 · Lesson 5
Regular -er verbs in the present tense
Regular -er verbs are the largest verb family in French. Take off -er and add -e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent: je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, ils parlent. Only the nous and vous forms sound different. The French present means both “he speaks” and “he is speaking”.
Last updated:
How does it work?
The -er verbs are the biggest family in French: thousands of them, and nearly all perfectly regular. New verbs join it too: surfer, googler. Learn one and you know them all. The recipe: take off -er to get the stem (parl-), then add the ending for the person.
| parler | ||
|---|---|---|
| je | parle | I speak, I am speaking |
| tu | parles | you speak (one friend) |
| il / elle / on | parle | he / she speaks, one speaks |
| nous | parlons | we speak |
| vous | parlez | you speak (polite, or several) |
| ils / elles | parlent | they speak |
Now the good news. Five written endings, but only three sounds. Parle, parles and parlent are all pronounced exactly “parl”. The -es is silent, and so is the -ent of ils parlent: never say “parl-ent”, and never say it like the English word “parent”. Only nous parlons (“-on”) and vous parlez (“-ay”) sound different. So in speech, the subject pronoun is what tells you who is talking.
Two small spelling rules. When the verb starts with a vowel, je shrinks: j’aime, j’écoute, j’entre. And verbs in -ger keep an e before -ons, so that the g stays soft like in “beige”: nous voyageons, not ✗ nous voyagons.
One tense, two Englishes. The French present covers both “he steals” and “he is stealing”. Il vole des bijoux can mean that stealing jewels is his job, or that he is doing it right now, while you are reading. Context decides.
What does it look like in the story?
These sentences come from lesson 5, “Who is Arsène Lupin?”, where the narrator is crossing the Atlantic on the liner Provence with Arsène Lupin hidden among the passengers.
| French | English |
|---|---|
| Il cambriole les châteaux et les salons de Paris. | He burgles the châteaux and drawing rooms of Paris. |
| Nous voyageons avec un voleur ! | We are travelling with a thief! |
| Moi, j’écoute en silence. | Me, I listen in silence. |
Try it: The three verbs are cambrioler, voyager and écouter. Cover the -er: what is left? And what gets added after il, after nous, after je?
« Arsène Lupin, l'homme aux mille déguisements: tour à tour chauffeur, ténor, bookmaker, fils de famille, adolescent, vieillard, commis-voyageur marseillais, médecin russe, torero espagnol! »
Arsène Lupin, the man of a thousand disguises: by turns chauffeur, tenor, bookmaker, rich man’s son, teenager, old man, travelling salesman from Marseille, Russian doctor, Spanish bullfighter! Maurice Leblanc, L’Arrestation d’Arsène Lupin (1905).
How is it different from English?
English has two presents, “I speak” and “I am speaking”. French has just one, je parle, for both. And while English adds an ending only for he/she (“speaks”), French writes an ending for every person, then politely leaves most of them silent.
What mistake do English speakers make?
English speakers translate “I am speaking” word by word: ✗ Je suis parle or ✗ Je suis parlant. French needs no “am”: ✓ Je parle. The other classic is reading the -ent aloud: ✗ “eel parl-ENT”. It is silent: ✓ “eel parl”, exactly like il parle.
Where can I practise it?
- Lesson 5: Who is Arsène Lupin?: the story, the rule and interactive exercises, free.
- Review 1: lessons 1 to 5: this point again, in a summary table with the other lessons of the block.
- The A1 glossary: every word of the course, French to English.
← Where adjectives go: colours and the body · À, en, au, aux with cities and countries →