#canad0 | A2 🇫🇷
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Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.
Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.
that's a lot. how about we go one thing at a time?
Oui
Yes
Irregular verbs make me really annoyed cuz in class I sound grammatically behind
My French is horribly behind cuz of grammar
there are a number of irregular verbs in French. The most common verbs in the language all are. And -re verbs are split into various patterns.
Unfortunately, apart from finding some patterns and common roots between tenses, it's mostly a lot of learning by heart.
Is there anything specific you wanna know about irregular verbs?
Yeah they’re all different with conjugation do you know any good techniques to memorize them
I find I struggle a lot with memorization
well, irregular mainly means they don't follow the usual rules, so it's on a case by case basis, there isn't any one rule for all of them.
Present tense is the most irregular tense. But past that point you can find recurring patterns.
maybe @late ledge has better tips
Thanks for your help I will try to figure things out
I mainly agree with Flynn
Perhaps I can immerse more into it
I will say though that the present is really crucial
The present forms the stem and conjugations of auxiliaries
Learning the present will get you far
start with present
I can check resources when I do look into it
present > passé composé > imparfait > futur simple
is usually the order in which to learn the main tenses, with present being the most important one
Strange how I was taught passé compose was the big verb tense
It was first one I learned
passé composé uses present in its construction though
For example, you mentioned the imperfect (imparfait). The imperfect endings are actually regular but their stems aren't, and their stems can be regularly derived from the present tense's second person plural minus its ending. For example: say you have the irregular verbs « avoir (to have), faire (to do), voir (to see), atteindre (to reach) ». If you just compare the present to the imperfect like « j'ai/j'avais, je fais/je faisais, je vois/je voyais, j'atteins/j'atteignais », you might get confused like where do these forms come from?
Well, if we just look at the present second person, we have « nous avons, nous faisons, nous voyons, nous atteignons ». To get the imperfect stem, we just chop off the -ons ending and then add the imperfect endings (-ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient)
(1) avoir (av-): j'avais, tu avais, il avait, nous avions, vous aviez, ils avaient
(2) faire (fais-): je faisais, tu faisais, il faisait, nous faisions, vous faisiez, ils faisaient
(3) voir (voy-): je voyais, tu voyais, il voyait, nous voyions, vous voyiez, ils voiyaient
(4) atteindre (atteign-): j'atteignais, tu atteignais, il atteignait, nous atteignions, vous atteigniez, ils atteignaient
As you can see, mastering the present goes a long way
Still confused about verb stems but I will try my best to learn it
I mainly recommend you do not learn too many tenses at once
it's important you have time to practice and get used to one tense before going on to learning the next one. Otherwise you'll get things mixed up, learning one tense is already hard enough on its own, and you need time to carve the verb conjugations in your brain.
Wait I have something for that
Duolingo and French class is not enough
In essence, verb stems are the bits that don't change
« Je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, ils parlent ».
The underlined part is the stem while the bold parts are the endings
What is present indactive used for
basically everything that's currently happening
je parle => I talk / I am talking
Thx
Thanks
IMO the order should go something like
- Présent [je parle], passé récent [je viens de parler], futur proche [je vais parler]
- Passé composé [j'ai parlé], imparfait [je parlais], futur simple [je parlerai]
- Conditionnel présent [je parlerais], conditionnel passé [j'aurais parlé], plus-que-parfait [j'avais parlé], futur antérieur [j'aurai parlé]
- Subjonctif présent [que je parle], subjonctif passé [que j'aie parlé], impératif [parle !]
(1 and 2 are enough to get you far)
So really the present past and future simple
There are more present tenses, more past tenses and more future tenses, but those are the main ones
More rare for the other ones
yeah.
some tenses like subjonctive for instance are common, but you don't need them to get understood (and it's hard to master)
It's just prioritising, basically
the subjunctive is important but it's waaay more important to master the present at this point
yeah, bertie didn't mention part 5: tenses you probably won't need 
Thanks for helping me
If you say « Il faut que je reviens » people will look at you weird but you will be understood
If you say « Je pouvez retourne plus tard » people will definitely be a bit apprehensive
I literally have trouble understanding the second sentence despite talking with many beginners
(1) Je termine, Ils/Elles terminent
(2) Tu penses , vous pensez, pensent
(3) Avancez avances
Grammar gives your sentence class
So my French speaking id get laughed at ðŸ˜
which is why you should really care for just the present at this point because it's quite literally the most important one
it has a bunch of domino effects
So I will review the present than and try to apply it more
Yeah ðŸ˜
Mastering the present gives you:
(1) The compound past auxiliary conjugations
(2) The simple future tense
(3) The perfect future auxiliary conjugations
(4) The imperfect stem
(5) The subjunctive stem
that's a lot of mileage
also you can use recent past and near future
Benefits
I will learn present and more verbs cuz that’s what standing in the way between intermediate and me
More vocab too
bertie's point is that literally all other tenses you'll learn are based on present in some way
plus present is the most common tense
Present connects with a lot of tenses
so might as well spend some time learning it
con being it's the most irregular tense
I will try thank you for your help
Je besoin dormir
Merci pour votre aidé à moi 🙂
One of the biggest ways to remember is to actually use the verbs in practice