French Present Tense Stem and Ending Patterns

The verb stem

• radical🔊stem

Stems and endings

The stem is the part of a verb that carries its basic meaning; endings change with the subject. Some French verbs extend their stem with -iss- in plural present forms, as in finissons: “Ils finissent à midi.” Other verbs change their stem in different ways, as in venir: vien-, ven-, vienn-.

• C’est le radical.🔊

  This is the stem.

• Le radical change ici.🔊

  The stem changes here.

-ir verbs: finir and grandir; a shorter pattern in dormir

Finir and grandir use -is, -is, -it in the singular and -issons, -issez, -issent in the plural. Dormir follows a different pattern: dors, dors, dort, then dormons, dormez, dorment. Not every -ir verb takes -iss-. In these tables, tu addresses one person informally; vous addresses one person formally or more than one person.

-re verbs: vendre and répondre

For vendre and répondre, remove -re and add -s, -s, no ending, -ons, -ez, -ent. This pattern does not apply to every verb ending in -re.

The prendre family

Verbs built from prendre share its changing stem. Prendre has three written stems: prend- in the singular, pren- with nous and vous, and prenn- with ils. Apprendre and comprendre follow the same changes: “Nous apprenons le français.” Learn these forms together rather than applying the vendre pattern.

The venir family

Verbs built from venir share its changing stem. Venir uses vien- in the singular, ven- with nous and vous, and vienn- with ils. Devenir follows the same changes. Add -s, -s, -t, -ons, -ez, -ent to the appropriate stem.

Endings that sound alike when spoken

Within each verb in these tables, the three singular forms sound alike even when their written endings differ. However, finis and finissent sound different: finissent has an audible /s/, as in “Ils finissent à midi.” Vend and vendent also differ: vend has no audible final /d/, while vendent does. The ending -ent is silent, but the plural stem can still sound different. Both French and English normally require a subject in ordinary statements; keep the French subject and learn the written ending for each form.

• Je finis à midi.🔊

  I finish at noon.

• Ils finissent à midi.🔊

  They finish at noon.

• Elle vend des livres.🔊

  She sells books.

• Ils vendent des livres.🔊

  They sell books.

Spelling changes that keep the sound

These spelling changes preserve the consonant sound before o. Before the -ons ending, manger keeps an e in mangeons so that g retains the sound it has in mange: “Nous mangeons à midi.” Commencer changes c to ç in commençons so that it retains the /s/ sound heard in commence: “Nous commençons à neuf heures.”