Lesson 4: Introducing the Present Tense

Since present-tense verbs are some of the most frequently used French verbs, let's start here. The present tense is used for actions happening now and for general, habitual actions.

As we established, a verb's ending tells us who is doing the action and when it's taking place. Here are the endings for regular verbs in the present tense, organized by subject pronoun and verb group:

French pronunciation is full of rules—and exceptions to those rules. For ‑ER verbs, the je, tu, and il/elle/on forms all sound identical: parle (je parle / il parle) sounds exactly like parles (tu parles). And because the ‑ent ending is always silent, the ils/elles form sounds the same too—regarde (je regarde) sounds exactly like regardent (ils regardent).

This neat overlap is a feature of ‑ER verbs specifically. For ‑IR and ‑RE verbs, the plural is pronounced differently from the singular, because a consonant that's silent in the singular gets voiced in the plural: il finit (fee-NEE) vs. ils finissent (fee-NEESS), and il vend (VAHN) vs. ils vendent (VAHND).

How do we use these endings? If we wanted to say "I speak," we'd conjugate parler with je in the present tense:

The same concept applies to all forms of all regular verbs in the present tense. Here are the three model verbs—one from each group—fully conjugated:

Here are a few examples of the present tense in the real world:

Phew! Does that seem like a lot to remember? Well… it is. Fortunately, VerbMaster is here to make the memorization process as smooth as possible. When you practice with VerbMaster, the mastery-based learning system keeps track of your strong and weak points and adjusts your study sessions accordingly.