Verb Action in French!
Learn how to conjugate regular er verbs
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Conjugation is the way you change a verb to go with different subjects in a sentence. Remember our subject pronouns?
Je means I
Tu means You (familiar)
Il means He or It (masculine)
Elle means She or it (feminine)
On means One (as in One should study hard)
Nous means We
Vous means Y'all (when you are talking to more than one person) or You (when you are being formal and polite when you address an adult or a stranger).
Ils means they (when you are referring to a group of males or masculine objects or a combination of males and females or a combination of masculine and feminine things)
Elles means they (when you are referring to a group of females or feminine objects)
The first type of regular verbs we will learn to conjugate are "regular" ER verbs, or verbs that end in the letters "ER." The ER ending indicates the verb is an infinitive and is always translated into English as TO do something. For example, to speak is "parler," to play is "jouer," to arrive is "arriver," and to leave is "quitter."
We cannot say, "Je jouer," because jouer means to play. That would mean I to play. Instead we remove the ER ending and the letters left over are the ROOT or STEM. The stem remains the same for all subject pronouns. However, a different ending goes with each subject pronoun.
For Je (I), the ending is E
For tu (you), the ending is ES
for il or elle (he/she or it), the ending is E
For the plural Nous (we), the ending is ONS
For Vous (y'all or your formal), the ending is EZ
For Ils or Elles (they), the ending is ENT
All the verbs are pronounced the same with all the endings, except for Nous and Vous!