-CER Verbs - French Spelling Change Verbs

Verbes qui changent d'orthographe

Erasing a chalkboard
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Verbs that end in -cer, like lancer, have a spelling change before endings that begin with the hard vowels a or o. Because c followed by a or o would make a hard c sound (like in cold), the c has to change to ç (c with a cedilla) to keep the c soft (as in cell).

In the present tense and the imperative, this c > ç spelling change is found only in the nous conjugation: lançons. It is needed in the present participle, lançant, but not the past participle, lancé. And it occurs in the following tenses/moods:

There is no spelling change in the conditional, future, or subjunctive.

The table below summarizes just the spelling change conjugations, or you can see lancer conjugated in all tenses.

All verbs that end in -cer undergo this spelling change, including

   annoncer   to announce
   avancer   to advance
   commencer   to begin
   dénoncer   to denounce
   divorcer   to divorce
   effacer   to erase
   lancer   to throw
   menacer   to threaten
   placer   to put
   prononcer   to pronounce
   remplacer   to replace
   renoncer   to renounce

Present Imperfect Passé simple Imperfect subjunctive Participles

je

lance

lançais

lançai lançasse

tu

lances

lançais

lanças lançasses

Present

il

lance

lançait lança

lançât

lançant

nous

lançons lancions lançâmes lançassions
vous lancez lanciez lançâtes lançassiez Past

ils

lancent lançaient lancèrent lançassent lancé
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Your Citation
Team, ThoughtCo. "-CER Verbs - French Spelling Change Verbs." ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/french-cer-verbs-1368948. Team, ThoughtCo. (2021, December 6). -CER Verbs - French Spelling Change Verbs. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/french-cer-verbs-1368948 Team, ThoughtCo. "-CER Verbs - French Spelling Change Verbs." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/french-cer-verbs-1368948 (accessed March 29, 2024).