In the present tense, there is potential for confusion. The present tense stem of -ier verbs ends in -i; for example, the stem of étudier is étudi. This means that the nous and vous forms of -ier verbs end in -ions and -iez, which leads some students to think, mistakenly, that they are looking at an imperfect conjugation:
j'étudie
tu étudies
il étudie
nous étudions
vous étudiez
ils étudient
The imperfect and subjunctive are where the real strangeness occurs. Because the stem ends in i and the nous and vous endings for the imperfect and subjunctive begin with i, -ier verbs have ii (two i's in a row) in those conjugations:
Imperfect
j'étudiais
tu étudiais
il étudiait
nous étudiions
vous étudiiez
ils étudiaient
Subjunctive
j'étudie
tu étudies
il étudie
nous étudiions
vous étudiiez
ils étudient
Not only does the double i look strange, but it is pronounced as well. The i in étudiez is pronounced as a semi-vowel that sounds like a y (written [j] in IPA), while ii in étudiiez is the i sound followed by the semi-vowel: [ij]. Listen to the difference:
étudiez [e ty dje]
étudiiez [e ty di je]
In sum, while -ier verbs are conjugated just like regular -er verbs, they can look strange, so you may need to make a special effort to be able to conjugate them and recognize their conjugations. Go on to page 2 for a list of common -ier verbs.
French -IER verb conjugations | |||||
To conjugate an -IER verb in the present tense, remove -er and then add the appropriate endings. For example, here are the present tense conjugations for the -IER verbs copier (to copy), marier (to marry), and skier (to ski): | |||||
| Pronoun | Ending | copier > copi- | marier > mari- | skier > ski- | |
| je | -e | copie | marie | skie | |
| tu | -es | copies | maries | skies | |
| il | -e | copie | marie | skie | |
| nous | -ons | copions | marions | skions | |
| vous | -ez | copiez | mariez | skiez | |
| ils | -ent | copient | marient | skient | |
| -IER verbs share conjugation patterns in all tenses and moods. Click the links above to see these three verbs conjugated into all of the simple tenses. | |||||
