Lesson 12: Irregular -RE Verbs

Like irregular ‑IR verbs, many irregular ‑RE verbs fall into recognizable patterns. Some belong to larger families, while others follow smaller patterns of their own.

We'll start with verbs ending in ‑uire. In the present tense, the plural forms add ‑s‑ to the stem:

The same pattern appears in other ‑uire verbs, including cuire (to cook) and nuire (to harm).

Verbs in the ‑aître family use ‑s, ‑s, ‑t in the singular. In the plural, the stem expands to ‑ss‑:

Naître (to be born) follows the same general pattern:

• je nais → il naît → nous naissons → ils naissent

Verbs ending in ‑aindre, ‑eindre, and ‑oindre drop the d in the singular. In the plural, the end of the stem changes to ‑gn‑:

This pattern also appears in verbs such as peindre (to paint), joindre (to join), teindre (to dye), and plaindre (to pity).

A few common irregular ‑RE verbs follow smaller patterns of their own. Focus on how the singular and plural forms relate.

Vivre

Vivre uses vi‑ in the singular and viv‑ in the plural:

Plaire

Plaire keeps the stem plai‑ throughout. Notice the î in the il/elle/on form:

Vaincre

Vaincre keeps c in the singular but changes c → qu in the plural:

A few other common ‑RE verbs follow smaller patterns of their own:

• battre (to beat): je bats → nous battons
• résoudre (to resolve): je résous → nous résolvons

Verbs built from dire, lire, and écrire generally follow the same present-tense patterns as their base verbs. There is just one important exception to watch for.

Dire and redire use ‑dites:

• vous dites (you say)
• vous redites (you say again)

Most other common verbs built from dire use ‑disez instead:

• vous contredisez (you contradict)
• vous interdisez (you forbid)
• vous prédisez (you predict)