I was just pondering the subtitle of this blog: "A Beginner's Guide to French Vocabulary, Phrases, Grammar, and Culture." I looked over my posts so far. The last four entries had at least one mention of le chocolat, but I have yet to address everyone's favorite topic--grammar. Now, I know that grammar might not be the most riveting subject in the world, but I'll do my best to make it fun. You won't get the live version of the song and dance (literally) that I do with my middle and high school students, but hopefully I can provide a clear, easy-to-understand beginner grammar lesson about . . . Ta-da!
Regular -ER Verbs
Oh, did you want to know what a regular -ER verb is? So glad you asked. French verbs can be classified as regular (following a pattern) or irregular (memorize, memorize, memorize.) There are three types of regular verbs: those ending in -ER, -IR, and -RE.
-ER verbs are my personal favorite. They are partout (everywhere.) Here are just a few:
parler (par-lay) - to speak
écouter (ay-coo-tay) - to listen
penser (pohn-say) - to think
danser (dohn-say) - to dance
regarder (reh-gar-day) - to watch, to look at
jouer (zhoo-ay) - to play
étudier (ay-tew-dee-ay) - to study
habiter (ah-bee-tay) - to live
téléphoner (tay-lay-fone-ay) - to phone/to call
visiter (vee-zee-tay) - to visit
donner (doen-ay) - to give
toucher (too-shay) - to touch
pousser (poo-say) - to push
tirer (tee-ray) - to pull
voyager* (voy-ah-zhay) - to travel
manger*(monzh-ay) - to eat
nager*(nahzh-ay) - to swim
I could go on and on and on. -ER verbs are très, très populaires.
Did you notice that the -ER at the end is pronounced "ay"? And did you also notice that the translations of all of the verbs begin with "to"? These verbs are in their most basic form, an infinitive. Of course, you can't say "I to eat", "He to play", or "Do you to swim?" You've got to conjugate.
Conjugation is simply changing a verb to match it's subject. In English, we say "I eat" and "He eats." The verb ending changes to agree with the subject. You do it all the time without even thinking about it.
But we're learning French. Let's think about it.
To conjugate an -ER verb, first set up a verb chart with your subject pronouns. (You'll do this for every verb you conjugate, forever and ever.) It will always be set up like this:
je = I (j' before a vowel sound) nous = we
tu = you (singular/informal) vous = you (plural or formal)
il = he or it ils = they (masculine)
elle = she or it elles = they (feminine)
Let's conjugate the verb parler. Write it at the top of your chart. Now follow these steps:
1. Drop the -ER off of the infinitive. This will leave you with the stem parl
2. Add endings to the stem. Just memorize the following red endings pattern and you can use them on every -er verb:
parler
je parlE nous parlONS
tu parlES vous parlEZ
il parlE ils parlENT
elle parlE elles parlENT
I spell out and sing the -ER endings with my students to help them remember the endings. The tune is "The Mexican Hat Dance." Say every letter individually: e, e-s, e, e, (clap, clap) o-n-s, e-z, (clap, clap) e-n-t, e-n-t (now, everyone dansez!)
Try spelling French -ER verb endings with Pork Chop le chat:
I promise I'm almost done . . . just one word on pronunciation. -ER verbs are "shoe" verbs. Draw one large circle-like shape around all of the verbs in your chart with the exception of the nous and vous forms. Doesn't it look like a shoe? Everything in the shoe has something in common. For -ER verbs, it's the pronunciation. That's right . . . parle, parles, and parlent all sound exactly alike (like this-"parl"). Please, please, please, for the love of Dieu, do not pronounce the "ent." Drives this French teacher crazy.
Now go forth and conjugate!
*When -ER verb stems end with the letter G, add E on the nous form before adding the ONS: nous voyagEons, nous mangEons, nous nagEons.
Now go forth and conjugate!
*When -ER verb stems end with the letter G, add E on the nous form before adding the ONS: nous voyagEons, nous mangEons, nous nagEons.
8 comments:
Hi Diane...
To follow up on the verbs conjugation: don't tell me you don't use the Bescherelles in the States!?! Incroyable... this little green book is the Bible... they even have the blue one for Anglos who want the explanations in English (and the translation of all verbs)! You should push your school administration to get those books for French classes.
Indeed, I never heard about -er regular, -ir regular and -re regular... makes no sense to me!
I know mostlanguage schools here use the Schaum (an exercise book made in the USA)for grammar courses... Yikes! On the very first page, first exercise, it's full of mistakes and bad grammar!
Convert yourself to the Bescherelles! LOL ;-)
This is so interesting. I have taught French for 18 years. I have both an undergraduate and a graduate degree in French. At every level I have been taught -ER, -IR, and -RE verbs as regular verbs. Naturally I have also been taught a slew of irregular verbs within and outside of the er, ir, re context. Perhaps these distinction are used for the benefit of second rather than first language acquisition?
You know, I never even gave a thought to the differences of learning French as a foreign language, and as a native language. There are some definite differences. And heck, I love grammar, but I'm no grammarian. The important goal is for our students to communicate correctly and effectively. Thanks for the interesting perspectives.
Lyne, thanks as always for lending your expertise.
Bienvenue Laura! Thanks for stopping by!
Hi Diane,
Very good lesson, one I'm constantly trying to memorize. The one thing that has always confused me is that if you are conversing & you say for example "Il parles or Ils parlent" & they sound the same, then how does the person listening lnow if the other person is talking about one person or a group of people? -Roy
Bonjour Roy,
Well, out of context, there's no way a listener could tell the difference. But if you're using a pronoun, then whatever it's replacing would have (or should have) been previously mentioned. So, in a real life context it would just make sense. Out of context, it's impossible to know for sure.
Hope that helps :-)
I'm a bit late to the discussion (teaching is really cutting in on my blog-reading time), but I wanted to add that I also learned that French has the 3 "regular" verb groups plus a slew of irregulars. Moreover, in 10 years of college-level teaching and nearly 2 at the high-school level, I have never come across a textbook that DIDN'T explain it that way. Of course there are verbs that end in IR and RE (and even ER, such as aller) that don't follow the regular verb patterns, but that's why we call them "irregular." I have no idea how native speakers learn their verbs, Diane, but since your site is aimed at non-native speakers, I'd say you're on track with your explanations. :-)
Merci Eponine! I've been teaching regular verbs this way for so many years, I started questioning myself. Did I make this up and become delusional? But it's just a native/second language thing. Whew . . . my students haven't driven me to the brink of insanity. Yet.
Well... I learned something here: I didn't know that when you teach French as a second language, you are talking about 3 groups of regular verbs... + the irregular ones.
Here in Canada, probably because both French and English are our official languages, there is no difference between teaching French to native speakers and English speakers... we teach 3 groups : 1st group (verbs in -er, except for "aller" and "envoyer" which belong to the 3rd group), 2nd group (verbs in -ir and aligned on "finir" - the smallest group of the entire French conjugation)and 3rd group (all the other verbs that do not belong in either 1st or 2nd group)...
Very interesting...
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