While there are three ways to express the present tense in English, there is only one in French. The French je parle may be translated as: (1) I speak, (2) I am speaking, or (3) I do speak. Do not try to translate any of these English expressions literally into French—for example, by saying Je fais parler for "I do speak" or Elle est achetant un café for "She is buying a cup of coffee." Either of these would be an enormous faux pas!

Être is the first verb you learned:

It is irregular, meaning that it does not follow the rules for most verbs. The important verbs in a language become irregular because they are used more often than the others and lose their original shape. Learn this one well!

Être, avoir, and aller are the three most important verbs. Know them well!

Verbs Ending in -er

The greatest percentage of verbs in the French language end in the letters -er and follow a pattern. Only one verb ending in -er is irregular and does not follow this pattern. It is aller (to go), and you learned it early on.

For all other -er verbs, separate the stem and the -er ending. We'll use parler (to speak) as our example The stem, left after the -er is removed, is parl- To form the present tense of this verb, and other -er verbs, we add the appropriate ending. The present tense looks like this:

Attention to the pronunciation! All the singular endings and also the third-person plural ending are silent. Do not pronounce -e, -es, -e, -ent. The last sound will be the consonant sound for those forms. For example, ils chantent (silent -ent ending). The plural verb will have the same sound as the singular.

Verbs Ending in -ir

To form the present tense of -ir verbs, drop the -ir ending, leaving the stem. Then, add the appropriate ending. The present tense looks like this:

Verbs Ending in -re

To form the present tense of -re verbs, remove the -re and add the appropriate ending. Notice that in the third-person singular (il, elle, on), no ending is added. The present tense looks like this: