5. The -er verbs, present tense

La chasse

When I think about Normandy, my mind often turns to food and eating out. We have found it very noticeable – particularly when accompanied by our friend Ken (je suis végétarien) – that the locals are enthusiastically carnivorous, as evidenced by the menus in the smaller restaurants, which have few if any vegetarian options. We've also noticed that hunting seems to be much more commonplace than in the UK.

For example, we spotted this sign in a field close to Tordouet and it took us a while to work out what it meant. "Chasser" means to hunt and "garder" is to guard, so "une chasse gardée" turns out to be a private hunting area or game reserve.

Another reminder of the French love of 'the chase' was our discovery of shops aimed specifically at 'le chasseur" (the hunter). Each time we visit Orbec, we are always fascinated to look at L'Armurerie Riffaut (Riffaut's armoury), recently relocated from the centre of the town to larger premises on the outskirts of Orbec. It specializes in steel lances (presumably for dispatching wounded wild boar), powerful-looking bows and arrows, highly expensive hunting knives (€300+) guns galore and of course buckets of "cartouches de chasse" (ammunition).

La Poterie

Just along from Riffaut's 'armurerie', and of much more interest to Sheila, is 'la Poterie' (the pottery) – now sadly lying empty, as of this year. 

la Poterie in Orbec

As Sheila is a potter herself, visiting this little pottery has been a delight and a real motivation to want to improve her French as she strove to compare technical notes about clays and glazes with the woman who ran it. The sign reads, 'Atelier Poterie, expo-vente, cours et stage', which translates as, 'Studio Pottery, exhibition-sale, courses and workshops'.

Before la Poterie shut down, Sheila bought this lovely piece there.

A small ceramic dish from la Poterie, Orbec

Look carefully and you'll see the word 'Orbec' in the stamp.

Sheila's wrinkles

"I loved watching Western films when I was younger and you can bet a pound to a Euro that some cowboy will meet an Indian for a 'parley'. So I've known the verb 'to talk' since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I always find it useful seeing verbs written down in order to see how similar they are to English. Hearing them spoken doesn't always give me the right connection. For example, seeing the verb to ask, "demander" written down reminds me of 'demanding an answer'. When I see the verb to fall, "tomber", I see the word 'tumble'. Here's how I see other verbs: to help – "aider" – 'to come to ones aid'; to stop – arrêter – 'to arrest something', as in " arrêter le bus'; to go in – "entrer" – to enter; to live – "habiter" – to inhabit Orbec; to get up – "lever" – to lever yourself up; to walk – "marcher" – quick march. There are loads of others so, as well as using this blog, check out words in a dictionary as the visual really helps me." Sheila

Ken's gems

"I found something very useful on the Michel Thomas course, which is that in English there are three ways to express something in the present tense - I eat, I am eating, I do eat, whereas in French (with the most common  '-er' verbs ) there is only one: je mange. (So, there are no '-ing' tenses in French.) Also, another way of thinking about the conjugation of, say, manger is that to form the first person singular conjugation you simply drop the' -r'. Then, for all these -er verbs, the form for 'il', 'elle', follows the form for 'je' - je mange, il mange, elle mange." Ken

The present tense

Both Sheila and Ken can make themselves understood in French, but only provided they stick to speaking in the present tense. What really got all three of us into working on this blog was our desire to master the subtleties of the verb endings for the other tenses – future, imperfect, and so on – which are both a source of terror and of great fascination in equal measure.

I'm hoping that what we cover here in Post 5 will reinforce what we already know about speaking in the present tense and give us a solid foundation on which we can build all the other tenses over the coming weeks.

Over the next couple of posts I'll be looking at the three most common families of verbs: those ending in -er, -ir and -re. By far the most important of these families is the "-er" group and that is where I'll start here. But first, here are three tips about pronunciation.

Pronouncing French

Tip 1. If a word ends in a consonant, ignore it:

For example, both of these words are pronounced in the same way.

parle, parles.

Also, -ent endings are ignored, so "parlent" is pronounced the same as "parle" and "parles".

Here are two further examples:

milk, lait [lay] – ignore the final "t".

but, mais [may] – ignore the final "s".

Tip 2. If a word ends in an "e", pronounce the preceding consonant but ignore the "e" (as is done in English).

Here are two examples:

rest, reste [rest].

cup, tasse [tass].

Tip 3. If a word contains an "e" with an acute accent over it, " é", then stress the "e".

Examples:

school, école [aykol]

priest,  curé  [curay].

-er verbs (present tense)

The overall aim of this blog is to help Sheila, Ken and myself to learn to "parler français" a bit better, so in this post I'm going to look at the verb "parler" (to talk or speak).

Like the majority of verbs in French, "parler" has an -er ending and in this post I'll be using it as a template for all French verbs ending in -er. Unlike, the three irregular verbs that I looked at in Post 4 (être, avoir and faire), it is comforting to know that the –er verbs (and there are thousands of them) behave in the same way.

The hard bit with using verbs in French is working out what ending to put on them. Here are the three steps to choosing the correct ending for a verb, based on "parler" to say – pronounced [parlay].

Step	Explanation
1. Find the infinitive form of the verb (parler).	The word "parler" translates into English as the two words "to talk". This is the infinitive form of the verb; it is important to know this as it tells you what family of verbs it belongs to (in this example, parler is an "-er" verb).
2. Remove the "er" from the infinitive to form the stem (parl-).	So, the stem for parler is parl-, the stem for aimer is aim-, and so on.
3. Choose the appropriate ending for the verb and add it to the stem.	Depending on the 'person' being used with the verb (I, he, we, etc), choose from the list of endings given in the table below.

Endings used for -er verbs (present tense)

Person (English)	Person (French)	Ending
I	je	-e
you	tu	-es
he/she/one	il/elle/on	-e
we	nous	-ons
you	vous	-ez
the	ils/elles	-ent

Here are two examples of applying the appropriate endings to two verbs, "demander" (to ask) and "danser" (to dance).

Example 1: Translating "we ask" (or "we are asking")

  
nous demandons

Example 2: Translating "she dances" (or "she is dancing")

elle danse

Une exception?

One important exception to this rule for –er verbs is the irregular verb "aller" to go, which conjugates rather weirdly, as follows:

je vais, tu vas, il/elle/on va, nous allons, vous allez, ils/elles vont

There are one or two other –er verbs that don't behave entirely predictably but luckily the vast majority do!

Video 

I’ve put up on Youtube a short video dealing with the regular -er verbs in the present tense.

Here is the link: Teaching my wife French: -er verbs, present tense

So, that's it for the "-er" verbs. In Post 6 I'll look at the conjugation, in the present tense, of another family of verbs – those ending in "-ir".

Au revoir.