Goal
You’ll be able to conjugate any regular -er verb correctly in the present tense — genuinely the largest verb family in French, covering the majority of French verbs.
Learn
-ER verbs are France’s largest verb family by far, using parler (to speak) as the model:
je parle (I speak) tu parles (you speak) il/elle parle (he/she speaks) nous parlons (we speak) vous parlez (you all speak / formal you) ils/elles parlent (they speak)
Remove -er from the infinitive, leaving the stem parl-, then add: -e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent. Every genuinely regular -er verb follows this exact pattern.
A genuinely important pronunciation detail connecting to Part 1.3: je parle, tu parles, il parle, ils parlent — all four of these forms sound identical when spoken aloud, despite having different spellings, since the endings -e, -es, -e, -ent are all silent in speech. This means, exactly as with plural nouns, spoken French often relies heavily on context and subject pronouns to distinguish these forms, not the verb ending’s sound itself.
Decision Task
You hear someone say a sentence with the word parle, but you didn’t clearly catch the subject pronoun before it. Before reading on: based on this lesson, could parle alone (by sound) tell you whether the subject is “je,” “tu,” “il,” or possibly “ils”?
Show Answer
No — je parle, tu parles, il parle, and ils parlent all sound identical when spoken, since their endings are silent. Without clearly hearing the subject pronoun itself, the verb’s sound alone genuinely cannot distinguish between these different subjects.
Common Mistake
Assuming that hearing a French present-tense verb clearly tells you which subject is being discussed, the way it more reliably might in a language with more audibly distinct verb endings. Since -e, -es, -e, and -ent are all silent, parle and parlent sound the same, making the actual subject pronoun the real carrier of that information in spoken French.
Practice Questions
1. Conjugate parler for “je”.
Show Answer
parle
2. Conjugate parler for “nous”.
Show Answer
parlons
3. Conjugate parler for “vous”.
Show Answer
parlez
4. Which four -er verb forms sound identical in spoken French, despite different spellings?
Show Answer
je parle, tu parles, il parle, and ils parlent.
5. What are the six present-tense endings for regular -er verbs?
Show Answer
-e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent
Try It Yourself
Without looking back, fully conjugate aimer (to like/love) across all six subject forms.
Show Answer
aime, aimes, aime, aimons, aimez, aiment — following the regular -er pattern applied to the stem aim-.
Quick Check
1. What is the largest French verb family?
Show Answer
-er verbs.
2. What is the “je” ending for regular -er verbs?
Show Answer
-e
3. What is the “nous” ending for regular -er verbs?
Show Answer
-ons
4. Are the -e, -es, -e, and -ent endings pronounced or silent?
Show Answer
Silent.
5. What is the correct conjugation of parler for “ils”?
Show Answer
parlent