#canad0 | A2 🇫🇷

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true lintelBOT
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heady cipher
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that's a lot. how about we go one thing at a time?

burnt relic
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Oui

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Yes

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Irregular verbs make me really annoyed cuz in class I sound grammatically behind

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My French is horribly behind cuz of grammar

heady cipher
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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?

burnt relic
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I find I struggle a lot with memorization

heady cipher
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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.

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maybe @late ledge has better tips

burnt relic
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Thanks for your help I will try to figure things out

late ledge
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I mainly agree with Flynn

burnt relic
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Perhaps I can immerse more into it

late ledge
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I will say though that the present is really crucial

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The present forms the stem and conjugations of auxiliaries

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Learning the present will get you far

burnt relic
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Than should I start with like the conditionnel

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Or like other tenses

heady cipher
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start with present

burnt relic
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I can check resources when I do look into it

heady cipher
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present > passé composé > imparfait > futur simple
is usually the order in which to learn the main tenses, with present being the most important one

burnt relic
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It was first one I learned

heady cipher
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passé composé uses present in its construction though

burnt relic
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Yes until conjugation

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Still a beginner so I don’t know what I’m saying is right

late ledge
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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

burnt relic
heady cipher
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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.

late ledge
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Wait I have something for that

burnt relic
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Duolingo and French class is not enough

late ledge
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In essence, verb stems are the bits that don't change

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« 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

burnt relic
heady cipher
heady cipher
late ledge
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IMO the order should go something like

  1. Présent [je parle], passé récent [je viens de parler], futur proche [je vais parler]
  2. Passé composé [j'ai parlé], imparfait [je parlais], futur simple [je parlerai]
  3. Conditionnel présent [je parlerais], conditionnel passé [j'aurais parlé], plus-que-parfait [j'avais parlé], futur antérieur [j'aurai parlé]
  4. Subjonctif présent [que je parle], subjonctif passé [que j'aie parlé], impératif [parle !]
heady cipher
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(1 and 2 are enough to get you far)

burnt relic
heady cipher
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There are more present tenses, more past tenses and more future tenses, but those are the main ones

burnt relic
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More rare for the other ones

heady cipher
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yeah.
some tenses like subjonctive for instance are common, but you don't need them to get understood (and it's hard to master)

late ledge
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It's just prioritising, basically

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the subjunctive is important but it's waaay more important to master the present at this point

heady cipher
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yeah, bertie didn't mention part 5: tenses you probably won't need missydoge

burnt relic
late ledge
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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

heady cipher
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I literally have trouble understanding the second sentence despite talking with many beginners

burnt relic
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(1) Je termine, Ils/Elles terminent
(2) Tu penses , vous pensez, pensent
(3) Avancez avances

burnt relic
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So my French speaking id get laughed at 😭

heady cipher
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no, it's just not gonna sound natural

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which is totally normal for a learner

late ledge
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which is why you should really care for just the present at this point because it's quite literally the most important one

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it has a bunch of domino effects

burnt relic
burnt relic
late ledge
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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

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that's a lot of mileage

heady cipher
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also you can use recent past and near future

burnt relic
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More vocab too

heady cipher
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bertie's point is that literally all other tenses you'll learn are based on present in some way

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plus present is the most common tense

burnt relic
heady cipher
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so might as well spend some time learning it

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con being it's the most irregular tense

burnt relic
burnt relic
peak ermine
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One of the biggest ways to remember is to actually use the verbs in practice