Irregular -RE Verbs
Learn about patterns for irregular -re French verbs
Irregular verbs are the bane of every French student's existence, but there's good news. There are some patterns in the irregularities - once you learn the conjugations for one verb in a group, you shouldn't have any trouble with the other verbs in that group. The bad news is that the majority of irregular verbs end in -RE, so there are a lot of patterns to learn.
There are seven kinds of -RE verbs
- prendre and its derivatives
- battre and its derivatives
- mettre and its derivatives
- rompre and its derivatives
- verbs that end in -aindre, -eindre, and -oindre
- completely irregular verbs (faire, connaître, etc.)
- regular -RE verbs
1. The first group of irregular -RE verbs includes prendre
and all of its derivatives (comprendre, etc).
The endings for these verbs are as follows:
| Singular | Plural | |||
| je | -s | nous | -ons | |
| tu | -s | vous | -ez | |
| il | - | ils | -ent | |
These verbs drop the d in the radical in the 1st and 2nd person plural forms and double the n in the 3rd person plural form.
|
PRENDRE |
||||
| je | prends | nous | prenons | |
| tu | prends | vous | prenez | |
| il | prend | ils | prennent | |
2. The second group of irregular -RE verbs includes battre
and all of its derivatives (débattre, etc.)
The endings for these verbs are as follows:
| je | -s | nous | -ons | |
| tu | -s | vous | -ez | |
| il | - | ils | -ent |
These verbs drop a t in the singular forms.
|
BATTRE |
||||
| je | bats | nous | battons | |
| tu | bats | vous | battez | |
| il | bat | ils | battent | |
3. The third group of irregular -RE verbs includes mettre
and all of its derivatives (promettre, etc.)
These verbs are conjugated just like group 2 (the battre verbs) in the present tense, but have a different passé simple and past participle.
4. The fourth group of irregular -RE verbs includes rompre
and its derivatives (corrompre, interrompre)
The endings for these verbs are as follows:
| je | -s | nous | -ons | |
| tu | -s | vous | -ez | |
| il | -t | ils | -ent |
These verbs are conjugated exactly like regular -RE verbs with the single exception of the third person singular present tense, which adds a t after the stem.
|
ROMPRE |
||||
| je | romps | nous | rompons | |
| tu | romps | vous | rompez | |
| il | rompt | ils | rompent | |
5. The fifth group of irregular -RE verbs includes
- craindre and all verbs that end in -aindre (plaindre, etc)
- peindre and all verbs that end in -eindre (ceindre, etc.)
- joindre and all verbs that end in -oindre (rejoindre, etc.)
The endings for these verbs are as follows:
| je | -s | nous | -ons | |
| tu | -s | vous | -ez | |
| il | -t | ils | -ent |
These verbs drop the d in the root in all forms, and add a g in front of the n in the plural forms.
|
PEINDRE |
||||
| je | peins | nous | peignons | |
| tu | peins | vous | peignez | |
| il | peint | ils | peignent | |
6. Completely irregular -RE verbs:
These verbs have unique or difficult conjugations that it would be nearly impossible to
describe, so you have to memorize each one separately. Try working on one verb a
day until you've mastered them all. Click
on each verb for a table of its conjugations. Any derivatives
conjugated the same way are listed under the conjugation table for each verb.
| absoudre | boire | clore | conclure | |||
| conduire | confire | connaître | coudre | |||
| croire | dire | écrire | faire | |||
| inscrire | lire | moudre | naître | |||
| plaire | rire | suivre | vivre |
| Test on irregular -RE verbs |
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