Lesson 9: Essential Irregulars

You've already met avoir, être, and aller, three essential verbs with highly irregular conjugations. In this lesson you'll meet more important French irregulars.

These are some of the most frequently used verbs in French, so learning them in small groups will make their patterns easier to recognize and remember.

Pouvoir means "to be able to" or "can," while vouloir means "to want." Their singular forms follow a similar pattern:

These four verbs follow the familiar ‑s, ‑s, ‑t pattern in the singular:

These verbs also follow the ‑s, ‑s, ‑t pattern in the singular. Their plural stems are different, so pay close attention to the full forms. One especially important form is vous dites. It ends in ‑tes, like vous êtes and vous faites, rather than using the more common ‑ez ending.