Present tense in French

Let’s conjugate and know more about the present tense in French! I must be honest with you: French conjugation is not easy, and you will probably struggle with those endings and those exceptions. But, this is part of learning a language: Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes a bit less, but you eventually will have to go through tough rules/times before being able to master this beautiful language. If you need motivation before reading this article, check this article 🙂

Sorry for this creepy introduction… especially since today, we will learn about the present tense in French, and it is not that bad!

What is the present tense in French?

In French, the present tense is the action that is taking place right now, without any notion of progressive action or not. So be relieved, we actually have only one present tense. To express the continuous notion, we use an expression.

I am eating an apple ⇒ Je suis en train de manger une pomme.

Yet, the sentence “Je mange une pomme” is also perfectly acceptable in this situation. If you really want to express the continuous action, this is how you need to phrase it:

Subject + être (present tense) + en train de + infinitive form of the verb + object.

Let’s get started with the present tense in French now!

3 Groups of verbs

In French, we need to distinguish 3 group of verbs:

• 1^st group: Verbs ending in -er (infinitive form)
• 2^nd group: Verbs ending in -ir (only the verbs that take the -issant ending when gerund form -ing mode)
• 3^rd group: All of the other verbs! Verbs ending in -re, those that ends in -ir but no -issant gerund-, …

If you want to know how to conjugate to be (être) and to have (avoir), please click here.

First Group

The first group is the easy peasy group! If you read the previous articles of my blog, you probably already know some French first group verbs. Do you remember them? Appeler (to call) / habiter (to live). Let’s learn two more today:

The endings are something you need to learn by heart, and once it’s known and understood, you won’t even think about it anymore. Did you notice something on this above table? There is a blue letter. Found it?

Prononciation rule

“Nous mangeons” is a bit particular:

The letter “g” is pronounced /j/ when in front of the vowels e, i, y and /g/ when in front of the vowels a, o, u.
So when we want it to be pronounced /j/ despite the fact that it is in front of the vowels a, o, u, we cheat a little bit and we add the letter “e” (which is muted when we pronounce it).
On the contrary, when we want to pronounce it /g/ when in front of e, i, y, we add the letter “u” (that is also muted), just like in the word “une bague” (a ring), for instance.

Exception: Aller (to go)

Even though the verb “aller” ends with -er, it is an exception and has its own conjugation:

Second group

The second group of verbs is made of verbs ending in -ir with a gerund form in -issant (-ing mode in English). Let’s learn the present tense endings with two new verbs:

Third Group

Which verbs belong to the third group?

• Verbs ending in -re (Infinitive form)
• Verbs ending in -ir (Infinitive form but not in -issant when gerund mode (-ing mode))
• The verb “aller” is considered as a verb belonging to the 3^rd group (see conjugation above)

Let’s study the third group present tense endings with three new verbs :

I hope that my explanations made the present tense in French clearer. If you have any questions or comments, please comment this article and I will be glad to help 🙂