French Conjugation - Conjugaison française

There may not be an easy way to learn how to conjugate French verbs, but at least the following is an easier one than usual.

There are two important things to study when it comes to French verbs: stems and endings. As you see in Cours 05, 07, 08, 09, and 11 (for the Future, the Imperfect, the Conversational Past Tense -Passé Composé, the Present Conditional and the Present Subjunctive respectively), endings are regular. In fact, it is almost only in the Present Indicative that the endings vary and almost only for the person singular.
Summary of the endings for the Present Indicative:

• Je
  

  -e: all -er verbs, except aller je chante, j'appelle, j'espère
  -x: 3 verbs: je veux, je vaux, je peux
  -s: all other verbs je vais, je finis, je viens, je sors

• Tu
  

  -x: 3 verbs: tu veux, tu vaux, tu peux
  -s: all other verbs tu téléphones, tu es, tu as, tu vas, tu fais, tu deviens

• Il, elle, on, quelqu'un, etc
  

  -e: all -er verbs, except aller il lave, elle joue, on s'amuse
  -d: a small handful of verbs whose stem ends with d: il prend, on entend, elle comprend, quelqu'un descend, chacun apprend, mais qui répond
  There are some other, but far from belonging to the Top100.
  -t: all other verbs il conduit, elle suit, on écrit.

• Nous
  

  -ons: all verbs except être: nous sommes.

• Vous
  

  -ez: all verbs except être: vous êtes, dire: vous dites, faire: vous faites.

• Ils, elles
  

  -nt: all verbs ils chantent, vont, viennent, disent, peuvent, font

Still a little uneasy?
It may be because you forgot that written French is more complex than oral French. When you speak, there is no difference between (je, tu) prends and (il, elle) prend or between (je, tu) veux and (il, elle) veut.
Think phonetics! When you write, you have time to open your grammar book.
It's more important to focus on the sounds.

The difficulty in French conjugation lies with the stems. Again, it is not as difficult as people say: 95% of verbs do not vary; the Infinitive, (the form that appears in lexicons and dictionaries) is also the basic form for these verbs. You have just to add the correct endings, and they are not very numerous.

Difficulty in learning French conjugation is due to the fact that among the 30 most usual verbs, 20 have several stems (from 2 to 7) to which endings must be added.

Each time you encounter a new verb, the better is to learn its Infinitive, its singular and plural first persons in the Present Indicative and its Past Participle, knowing that in 95% of the cases you have not a lot to learn.
For the other 5% you must also learn the stem for the Future and the Present Subjunctive thus you will know all the stems of verbs with several stems.

Below, (very) common verbs with several stems to know by heart. They are ranked by "popularity".

To conjugate verbs in compound tenses only requires you to know how to conjugate avoir and être in simple tenses.

The difficulty is rather to choose between simple and compound tense.
The choice of a simple or compound tense in French depends on the state of the action. We use simple tenses for work in progress and compound tenses for completed work. The notion of "work in progress" includes habits and lasting events.

Simple tenses

• Aujourd'hui, il neige.
  

  It is snowing right now, while I am watching outside.
  Je regarde par la fenêtre et je vois la neige qui tombe.

• Hier, il neigeait.
  

  Though grammatically correct, this sentence can't be said alone. You must put it in a context. The imperfect needs a story.
  Hier, il neigeait pendant que je te téléphonais;
  Hier, il neigeait et aujourd'hui, il y a du soleil.
  Read how Victor Hugo used Imperfect to set a background in La Retraite de Russie:
  ...Il neigeait. Il neigeait toujours. La froide bise
  Sifflait; sur le verglas, dans des lieux inconnus
  On n'avait pas de pain et on allait pieds nus.
  Ce n'étaient plus des coeurs vivants, des gens de guerre
  C'était un rêve errant dans la brume, un mystère,
  Une procession d'ombres sous le ciel noir.
  La solitude vaste, épouvantable à voir,
  Partout apparaissait, muette vengeresse.
  Le ciel faisait sans bruit avec la neige épaisse
  Pour cette immense armée un immense linceul.
  Et chacun se sentant mourir, on était seul.

• Cet hiver, il neigera.
  

  Of course, the future can't be completed, so you must use a simple tense.

Compound tenses

• Aujourd'hui, il a neigé
  

  This morning, it snowed, but it snows no longer this afternoon at the hour when I am speaking.
  Hier, il a neigé.
  The snow may still cover the lawn, but it is not snowing now.

• Hier, il avait neigé.
  

  The Pluperfect, like the Imperfect, is a story teller. Avoir is conjugated in the imperfect (in order to build the plusperfect) and needs a context. This sentence can't be said alone easily.
  Hier, je n'ai pas pu sortir la voiture (the event): il avait neigé (the background).

• Il aura neigé.
  

  This form of future in the past is used to express a supposition.
  Cathy est en retard: il aura neigé et elle n'aura pas pu sortir sa voiture. (Cathy is late: it might have snowed and she might have been unable to drive her car).

If the meaning of the phrase allows to add: quand (soudain, tout à coup, brusquement, etc,) you must not use the imperfect.
Je somnolais quand les enfant ont crié. Je traversais quand la voiture a surgi.
If the meaning of the sentence allows to add: pendant ce temps, tandis que, etc, you must not use the passé composé.
Je somnolais pendant que les enfants criaient.

Here is a list to complete the French Top 100 verbs.
Some of them appear more often in written French and, on the contrary, some other are common in spoken French. All are common in both written and spoken French but, i.e. écrire is 44th in written French list and 65th in spoken French list.
You can see that -er verbs become more and more numerous.

trouver, arriver, donner, passer, parler, aimer, demander, laisser, rester, penser
regarder, rendre, appeler, paraitre, sortir, manger, écouter, travailler, sentir, vivre
chercher, commencer, revenir, lire, entrer, répondre, écrire, porter, tomber, reprendre
acheter, payer, marcher, monter, jouer, rire, ouvrir, servir, vendre, attendre
perdre, descendre, finir, rappeler, apprendre, arrêter, mourir, occuper, compter, dormir
suivre, montrer, boire, continuer, recevoir, souffrir, valoir, apercevoir, (se) souvenir, reconnaitre
essayer, marier, conduire, plaire, sembler, raconter, changer, remarquer, obliger, intéresser
coucher, devenir, jeter, lever, agir, sourire, tirer, ajouter, tourner, garder

The list may seem long but each French sentence uses one of these verbs, or nearly, so you will know them soon.
All the more that you learnt e.g. voir in the first list so that you already know how to conjugate recevoir and apercevoir; or you learnt prendre and comprendre and thus know reprendre and apprendre.