Present tense: verb patterns and high-frequency verbs
Green takes over. Three regular patterns and seven irregular workhorses — between them they carry most of everyday spoken French.
Colours live this week
10 of 10 in playA thing, a person or a place.
An action or a state — what is happening.
Describes a noun.
Modifies a verb or an adjective.
the / a / some — and possessives like mon, ma.
Stands in for a noun — I, you, he, it.
Links words together — to, in, of, for.
Joins two parts of a sentence.
Opens a question — where, when, how, why.
Learn it whole. Do not take it apart.
The full palette has been live since Week 4. From here on, nothing new is introduced — you simply use all nine.
What to produce, and what only to recognise
In every conjugation table from here on, the forms to produce are je, vous, il/elle/on and nous. The tu and ils/elles forms are recognition-only for now: know them when you hear them, do not drill them. That is a deliberate limit — it protects working memory and keeps a day inside its fifteen minutes.
The three regular patterns
Learn one model verb per group and hundreds of French verbs follow the same endings. The pronunciation is kinder than the spelling: for -er verbs the je, tu, il and ils forms all sound identical — the written -e, -es and -ent are silent. Only the nous (-ons) and vous (-ez) endings are actually audible.
| Verb | jereviewed | tu | il / elle / on | nous | vous | ils / elles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| parlerto speak (-er group) | parle | parles | parle | parlons | parlez | parlent |
| finirto finish (-ir group) | finis | finis | finit | finissons | finissez | finissent |
| vendreto sell (-re group) | vends | vends | vend | vendons | vendez | vendent |
Only the je column becomes a review card. The rest are there to be recognised, not produced — which is what keeps a day inside its fifteen minutes.
Seven irregular verbs worth more than any others
These do not follow a pattern, and it does not matter — they turn up so often that you will learn them by sheer repetition.
| Verb | jereviewed | vous | il / elle / on | nous |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| êtreto be | suis | êtes | est | sommes |
| avoirto have | ai | avez | a | avons |
| allerto go | vais | allez | va | allons |
| faireto do or make | fais | faites | fait | faisons |
| pouvoircan, to be able | peux | pouvez | peut | pouvons |
| vouloirto want | veux | voulez | veut | voulons |
| prendreto take | prends | prenez | prend | prenons |
Only the je column becomes a review card. The rest are there to be recognised, not produced — which is what keeps a day inside its fifteen minutes.
Chunks built from those verbs
Learn these whole. You will reach for them constantly, and taking them apart wastes effort you need elsewhere.
- [je suis]I am
- [j'ai]I have
- [je vais]I am going / I'm about to
- [vous pouvez]you can
- [c'est]it is / that is
- [il y a]there is / there are
Three tiny words doing one job. Never dissect it.
Sentence frames
- 1
Je parle français.
I speak French.
- 2
Vous pouvez répéter ?
Can you repeat?
Two verbs in a row — the second stays in its dictionary form.
- 3
Nous allons au café.
We are going to the café.
Daily mini-tasks
Listening this week
Coffee Break French — the verb episodes
Season 1, around episodes 5 to 8
Clear conjugation drills. Ideal for shadowing at 0.75× speed.