danl172

[shrewd bramble]

Please be patient

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[eternal python]

N'étais pas for je, tu and n'était pas for il, elle and on

Je n'étais pas
Tu n'étais pas
Il/elle/on n'était pas

[balmy bough]

Adding to the comment above, verbs agree according to person, number, and tense. While person information can include gender, it's irrelevant unless you're dealing with compound tenses where the past participle is involved like passé composé or plus-que-parfait. In those cases, the past participle does agree with gender and number, and that's because past participles are adjectives

[nova talon]

^^ for the verbs like se sentir or se lever

[balmy bough]

Ex:
« il vient, elle vient
ils viennent, elles viennent »
Agreement here is with person (third person), number (singular).

« il est venu, elle est venue
ils sont venus, elles sont venues »
The auxiliaries still agree only in person and number but the past participle here acts like an adjective so it agrees with the gender and number of the noun it's modifying.

[nova talon]

elle s'est sentie
elle s'est levée
il s'est levé

and also for direct objects

je l'ai mangé (masculin item)
je l'ai mangée (feminin item)

its a bit of a nightmare actually but from what i know even natives struggle with that part

[jolly spire]

C'est très serviable, merci beaucoup à tous

[nova talon]

esp when we get to things like elle s'est fait voler because se faire is an indirect object not a direct object

but elle s'est faite belle

[balmy bough]

Yes, though for avoir verbs the agreement is for the direct object behind the verb whereas what I gave is for intransitives without objects

[nova talon]

to help you out too at least for indicatif (not composé) je will never end in t

[fathom pond]

Pronominal verbs follow the direct objects rule, they basically just act like normal avoir verbs

[balmy bough]

It's more that the COD of « se faire » is the infinitive so it's always going to be invariable. For « elle s'est faite belle », the adjective here is a complement of the direct object « se ».

Elle s'est fait voler
Elle s'est faite belle

Bold = Indirect object
Underlined = Direct object

[nova talon]

yes

[balmy bough]

This applies for first and second person, always

[nova talon]

so when it's a pronominal and indirect it doesn't agee with gender

[fathom pond]

But those concepts are pretty advanced, the gist is still that conjugation takes tense, person and number into account, but not gender

[balmy bough]

-t/-ø is a characteristic of third person conjugations

[fathom pond]

Yep

[eternal python]

Neither will the subjunctive

[nova talon]

or conditional

yea it's never t for first person haha

[balmy bough]

Basically, you can get by with this pattern:
-s = sing. second
-t/-ø = third in general though it always ends with T for the plural
-ons = pl. first
-ez = pl. second

[nova talon]

what is ø

[eternal python]

Nothing

[fathom pond]

Nothing

[balmy bough]

It's only the first that's a bit random because they can either have no ending like « je parle » or have second person endings (je finis)

je parle, je finis, je rends, je prends, j'écris, je conduis, j'atteins

…okay maybe -s is a first person ending except for first group conjugations (-er)

[eternal python]

First group: -e
Second group: -is
Third group: -s/x

je veux, je peux

[nova talon]

on another note aside from the -er and -ir i would advise anyone not to try and memorize the rules

[balmy bough]

It's a lot more useful to have third as -is as well since the vast majority of third group conjugations for the first person end in -s save for the really irregulars of « avoir, pouvoir, vouloir, etc »

[nova talon]

learn each verb by itself for the 3rd group a

and eventually it gets obvious because they're all kind of patterned off each other

[balmy bough]

Third group conjugations do have patterns it's just that there's a tonne of them

[eternal python]

And there are exceptions

[balmy bough]

For first and second groups, the standard conjugation is so common that you can memorise them and have it apply to 99% of all verbs in those categories

[eternal python]

Like the derivatives of dire

[balmy bough]

For the third, there's just too many subgroups

[eternal python]

The only exception for the first group is aller and for the second it's haïr I think

[balmy bough]

and subgroups within subgroups like what Tiyan said with « dire » since some plural second person conjugations end up like dire (vous dites, vous redites) and some regularised it (vous médisez, vous prédisez, vous contredisez)

[balmy bough]

haïr follows the pattern

partir, sortir, dormir, couvrir, offrir, cueillir, etc don't

[nova talon]

yea those are the fake 2nd groupers

[eternal python]

je hais
nous haïssons

[nova talon]

HAHAHAHAHA

[balmy bough]

That is the pattern :
Je finis
Nous finissons

[eternal python]

They are in the third group

[nova talon]

je réfléchis
nous réfléchissons

[eternal python]

My favorite is maudire which conjugates like a second group verb for some reason

[balmy bough]

There's a stem change in the plural present which infects the rest of the tenses

[balmy bough]

Sorta, it depends which authority you follow. Traditional French grammarians have divided it into three conjugation groups: first (-er), second (-ir), third (everything else); Learner material instead divided it into four conjugation groups: first (-er), second (-ir), third (-re, rendre pattern) + irregulars

[eternal python]

Yes but it's pronunciation is weird

je hais = je e
nous haïssons = nu a.i.son

This doesn't happen to any other 2nd group verb

[balmy bough]

yes it does

je finis
nous finissons

j'abasourdis
nous abasourdissons

[eternal python]

I wasn't referring to the -ss-

[balmy bough]

je fleuris
nous fleurissons

[eternal python]

Pronounced as fini, but hais is pronounced as e

[balmy bough]

The verb is « haïr »

you have to keep that tréma when the stem changes

that's not an exception, just how the verb functions

What, are you going to say that every -cer and -ger verb is an exception because their plural first conjugation ends in -eons/-çons instead of -ons?

[eternal python]

That's but a spelling convention

[balmy bough]

Fair enough but that doesn't warrant enough of a charge to consider it 'irregular' or an 'exception'