Liberté, 2017a

Grammar Note: When conjugating
regular verbs, the
stem remains the same, and
one must simply memorize the
endings. We will learn regular
verbs in chapter 3, but here is
an example, just so you can see
that all verbs are not as bad as
être! You can see that with a
regular verb, the stem, parl-, is
the same for both the infinitive
and all six conjugated forms.
That is not the case with être
and a few other extremely
irregular verbs.
parler (to speak)
je parle Ispeak
tu parles you speak
il parle he speaks
nous parlons we speak
vous parlez you speak
ils parlent they speak
• If you use a noun instead of a pronoun as your subject, you
use the verb form that matches the grammatical person. For
example, ma mère = elle (third person singular), so it uses the
third person singular form of the verb: Ma mère est américaine
= Elle est américaine.
Infinitives in French fall into three groups according to their endings
(-er, -ir, or -re) and are classified as regular or irregular. The
forms of être are very irregular – that is, they do not look like each
other or even like the infinitive. Unlike the regular verb parler shown
in the margin, the six forms of the verb être do not share the same
stem but are completely different from each other. Although you
do have a number of irregular verbs to learn, it should reassure you
to know that over 95% of the verbs in the language fall into the
regular -er group, which means that once you learn the six forms in
that pattern, you can conjugate any verb in that group.
B.3.1 Practice conjugation, être
It is very important to learn the forms of a new verb. Boring as
it may seem, one good way to do it is simply to write them out
and recite them many times. After a while, they will start to look
and sound “right.” Write out the conjugation of être four times; if
your teacher has already modeled the correct pronunciation, say the
forms out loud as well. Refer to the IPA to refresh your memory of
your teacher’s model pronunciation.
être
je
tu
il/elle
nous
vous
ils/elles
être
je
tu
il/elle
nous
vous
ils/elles
être
je
tu
il/elle
nous
vous
ils/elles
être
je
tu
il/elle
nous
vous
ils/elles
B.3.2 Verb endings, être
The verb être, although very irregular, does share some commonalities
with most French verbs: the last letters of the je, tu, il, andils
forms are typical, although the forms themselves are very unusual.
42 Chapter 1 Bonjour! Çava?