French -ER Verbs: Simple Guide with Regular and Irregular Conjugation

In French, verbs that end in -er are by far the most common, making up around 90% of all verbs in the language. It’s easy to see why knowing how to conjugate them is a must-have skill!

To that end, here’s your full guide to French –er verbs, including conjugation tables, simple explanations, and tips on how to spot irregular verbs. 

Contents

• What Are French -er Verbs?
• • Common -er verbs in French
• Conjugating Regular -er Verbs
• • L’indicatif (indicative)
  • Conditionnel (conditional)
  • Subjonctif (subjunctive)
  • L’imperatif (imperative)
  • Imparfait (imperfect)
• Irregular French -er Verbs
• • Aller
  • Spelling change verbs
  • Stem-changing verbs
• And one more thing...

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

What Are French -er Verbs?

French -er verbs—meaning, verbs that end in -er—are by far the most common type of verb in the language. There are more than a thousand of them! 

Their number continues to grow as well: As the language changes over time and more neologisms and anglicisms find their way into French, they always take the form of –er verbs.

Indeed, as French learners, they are usually the first verbs we deal with before moving on to regular –ir and -re verbs. It’s safe to say that regular –er verbs are the bread and butter of French verbs.

Common -er verbs in French

I know what you’re thinking: “Let’s see some verbs, already!”

Here’s a list of common –er verbs:

Conjugating Regular -er Verbs

When conjugating -er verbs in French, you usually take off the -er and replace it with a different ending (with the exception of the conditional mood, which follows a different system).

With regular verbs, these endings follow a pattern—they stay the same for each person. Here’s an example conjugation chart with the verb manger (to eat), with the new verb endings in bold:

Now, let’s take a look at the different conjugation patterns of the present tenses of the indicative, the conditional, the subjunctive and the imperative, as well as the imperfect past tense. They’re each built around a stem.

L’indicatif (indicative)

The French present tense is used to express habitual actions, current actions and situations, statements of generally-accepted knowledge and actions that will immediately occur.

Conditionnel (conditional)

The conditional mood is used to refer to hypothetical events as well as to make polite requests. The verb aimer (to like, to love), is especially apt for polite requests. The conditional stem for regular –er verbs is the same as its infinitive.

Subjonctif (subjunctive)

The subjunctive mood conveys actions or ideas that are uncertain or subjective such as doubt, judgment and necessity. The stem for conjugating the subjunctive form of aimer (to like, to love) is aim-.

L’imperatif (imperative)

The French imperative is used to give commands. We only conjugate it in the tu, nous and vous forms.

Imparfait (imperfect)

The imperfect is a past tense used to describe an ongoing state, repeated or incomplete action.

Across the board for –er, -ir and –re verbs, the imperfect stem is formed by dropping the -ons ending from the present indicative nous (we) form. The nous form of aimer is aimons, so the stem is aim–. Let’s take a look at the endings now:

Irregular French -er Verbs

Aller (to go) is the only truly irregular verb in the French language, but there are some other stem-changing and spelling change verbs that could also be put into this category. 

Aller

The verb aller  (to go) has a completely irregular conjugation that doesn’t follow any predictable pattern. See for yourself:

Spelling change verbs

Spelling change verbs always end in –cer or –ger, so they’re easy to spot. They are conjugated in much the same way as regular -er verbs, but with occasional spelling changes. The spelling changes, which only occur in a few conjugations, are done to maintain proper pronunciation.

Here are a few examples of –cer and –ger verbs: 

• placer (to place)
• effacer  (to erase)
• lancer  (to throw)
• nager  (to swim)
• déranger  (to disturb)
• diriger  (to direct)

Stem-changing verbs

Stem-changing verbs take the regular endings, but their stems change spelling, with two different versions of each one depending on the grammatical person. You can recognize them by their endings: –yer, -eler, -eter, -e_er, or -é_er. 

Here are some examples of this type of verb:

• broyer  (to grind)
• employer  (to grind)
• envoyer  (to grind)
• nettoyer  (to clean)
• se noyer  (to drown)

Check out this article for more information on irregular French verbs: 

Well now you have it. The complete guide to French –er verbs.

Now get out there and conjugate some verbs!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

And one more thing...

If you like learning French on your own time and from the comfort of your smart device, then I'd be remiss to not tell you about FluentU.

FluentU has a wide variety of great content, like interviews, documentary excerpts and web series, as you can see here:

FluentU brings native French videos with reach. With interactive captions, you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples.

For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this:

Practice and reinforce all the vocabulary you've learned in a given video with learn mode. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning, and play the mini-games found in our dynamic flashcards, like "fill in the blank."

All throughout, FluentU tracks the vocabulary that you’re learning and uses this information to give you a totally personalized experience. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)