Creative Way To Conjugate The French Verb Etre

How do I learn French tenses and conjugation?

Different answers for the same question, because different people experience language learning differently.First, passé simple: Unless you plan to write history or literature in French, there is no need to learn it. It’s a written tense for more formal writing. If you know the other tenses you can easily recognize verbs (for their meaning) when you see them in passé simple, if you ever come across that tense. I would take that off your plate.The rest is memorization. There are patterns to the verb tenses in French, and if you can see those, you’re ahead of the game. Pick whatever method of memorization works for you: flash cards, electronic flash cards, make audio recordings to listen to, teach yourself gestures (a different one for each person), make little songs to “sing in your head.” I’m not telling you which method to use, because each one of us is different and has different preferences for memorization. Try to figure out which is yours. How do you remember best for, say, a list of tasks you have to do? Transfer that method to a study method.Finally, while it’s important to know verb conjugations in French, keep in mind that no French speaker walks around conjugating all day. You have to use them, in conversation, in writing. If you’re in a class, hopefully you have these opportunities. If not, you may want to find a penpal or epal, keep a journal, watch videos, etc. Just memorizing dry words won’t do much for anybody. It’s all about using them.Good luck!

How do French conjugate a verb borrowed from other lang?

If there's a consistent rule, it seems to be that foreign verbs fall into the "group 1" verb category. Group 1 verbs end in -er. They are the easiest verbs to conjugate.To borrow Franck's example:Je dribbleTu dribblesElle dribbleNous dribblonsVous dribblezIls dribblent This is fun. My Bescherelle is dated 1980. It reads "New verbs almost always fall in the first group: téléviser, atomiser, radiographier, etc." In 2013, what are the new words? In work jargon so many new words have filtered in, depending on what kind of computer applications you use. Delete means remove or erase, in French we should say supprimer. But the Delete key has a kind of identity of its own, so some people say 'deleter' in French. Every workplace probably has it's own computer era English vocabulary. What else can you do when developers don't bother to translate?Other examples are more surprising. Can you guess what it means in French to be 'scotché'? It comes from Scotch tape. When you are surprised or very impressed, to the point of not finding your words, you are scotched. I'm not kidding.You could also be bluffé. A great show is bluffant. Would you like me to fill you in on the situation? In French I would 'briefe' you. Je l'ai briefé. Il m'a briefé. Not so sure of the spelling, or if the Academie Française has made a decision as to whether this is French or not. Any other examples?

Is there a psycho or socio linguistic reason why some french verbs use "etre" as a compound verb instead of "avoir"?

Interesting question, and probably worthy of a Masters' thesis. But here's an interesting abstract to begin with:The present study examines the pattern of the variation of the auxiliary avoir and être in the passé composé tense in Vermont French in 22 adult speakers who migrated from Québec or are first-generation Franco-Americans. The purpose of the study is to determine if the process of replacement of être by avoir in progress in Canadian French is also taking place in Vermont and which linguistic and social constraints influence this linguistic change. Results of the study reveal that the process of replacement of être by avoir is also taking place in Vermont, and that it is significantly favored by the presence of a main verb that has a transitive homonym and by the presence of a low-frequency main verb. The fact that social factors do not significantly influence this replacement indicates a later stage of linguistic change, supporting patterns found in the literature of language death.(from  Marijke Russo and Julie Roberts (1999). Linguistic change in endangered dialects: The case of alternation between avoir and être in Vermont French. Language Variation and Change, 11, pp 67-85. )What to conclude? If smaller communities like Vermont and Quebec are starting to replace 'etre' with 'avoir' in low-frequency main verbs that 'sound like' transitives, and if  Russo & Roberts are correct that this isn't a social factors change, then: Hypothesis: 'Etre' verbs are, in the minds of French speakers, reserved for reflexives, intransitives and 'exceptions'.  'Exceptions' will tend to drop out of the class when they become low-frequency (much as English irregular verbs become regular when they lose frequency, e.g. slew > slayed) . Possible arguments: Intransitive verbs (those taking no object) are special in many languages. In Ergative-Absolutive languages, the single argument of an intransitive is inflected exactly like an object, so they'd say 'I moved her', but in the intransitive sentence, 'her moved'.  Perhaps all intransitive's subjects are, in the minds of speakers, more or less the same as objects. Or perhaps they're considered similar to reflexives - "her moved" being close to "she moved herself". Or perhaps all these things are more or less considered just ways to 'become', often cited as the logic behind 'etre' verbs. Now go write the thesis and prove me right or wrong.

What are the other essential verbs to learn in French, apart from 'etre' and 'avoir?

Aller (to go), faire (to do) are important verbs used in tons of expression and they are also irregular (like many very commonly used verbs).Other commonly used verbs :Dire (to tell, to say)Voir (to see)Savoir (to know)Pouvoir (to can)Falloir (you rarely encounter the infinitive present form but you will see it conjugated often, like il faut with an impersonal il)Vouloir (to want)Venir (to come)Prendre (to take)Arriver (to arrive)Croire (to believe)Mettre (to put)and many more.It’s not because you can translate these with a verb in English that expressions involving those verbs are compatible between both languages. For example, in French, you cannot “take someone” to the bus station, however you can “come of” to mean you “just did” something. French also has no concept of “modal verbs”, the closest thing being adding a prefix to a verb to change its meaning.Notice they are often in the verbal group you won’t like to conjugate : the dreaded third group. In Romance languages, you usually learn verbs one tense at a time, so nope, you don’t have to learn the whole conjugation table just yet.Have fun using this handy conjugator, also available as a mobile app :https://leconjugueur.lefigaro.fr/

Is verb conjugation essential for UNDERSTANDING French? What if there were no inflection in French?

Some knowledge of verb conjugation is essential to understand French. This is even more important because of the numerous homophones of the French language. We distinguish between different homophones based on context and the rest of the sentence.Here’s an example:“Nous sommes de retour à la maison.” (We are back home.)“En somme, nous devrions vendre la maison” (In summary, we should sell the house).In the first sentence, “sommes” is the verb “être” (to be) at the 1st person plural. Now if you didn’t know about verb conjugation in French, you wouldn’t be able to guess that. “Être” and “Sommes” have only one letter in common and they don’t look or sound similar at all. This is not the only irregular verb that has little in common between its infinitive form and its conjugated form. In this case, it would be difficult to understand the sentence if you don’t know what “sommes” means.In the second sentence, we use another meaning of “somme” (same pronunciation as “sommes”). Here “somme” is like “sum”, meaning the result of an addition. You can say “En somme” to conclude a series of argument, the same way you would say “in summary” or “in conclusion” in English.How do I know, as a French speaker, the difference between “sommes” in the first sentence and “somme” in the second sentence? Because of “Nous” and “En”. “Nous sommes” means “we are” and “En somme” means “In summary”. I don’t differentiate between “sommes” and “somme”, I differentiate between “Nous sommes” and “En somme”.Now, how would you do this if you didn’t know what “Nous sommes” meant?

How can I memorize french conjugations more efficiently and quickly?

Most of us will have to do it the normal way – write it on cards or small notebooks and work on memorising them.Keep those cards in your bag and go over them regularly.I am sure you know that the first few verbs we all started with include the very common “avoir”, “être”, “aller” and possibly “venir”. (If you cannot remember the conjugated forms of these very common verbs it is of no use trying to advance too much. You’ve got to memorise them first before moving on. They will be useful when you get to other tenses, like the passé composé. Some of my peers got to level 3 and still cannot remember the forms of "avoir" and "aller" - which is very bad.) Now you must be aware that there are regular verbs in French and if you carefully note the pattern how each verb form is created, you can make memorising work easier for you. Take the –ER verbs like “parler”, “aimer”, “danser”, etc – in the simple present tense.Note how the endings in “parler” are formed for each different “subject pronoun” and you can quickly work out what it would be for other –ER verbs.Example 1. PARLERJe parlETu parlESIl parlENous parlONSVous parlEZIls parlENT Example 2. AIMERJe aimETu aimESIl aimENous aimONSVous aimEZIls aimENT Can you see that it is not too hard for these –ER verbs? For other –ER verbs, refer to: French Regular -ER Verbs # I HAVE EDITED/EXPANDED AND ADDED THESE FOR TWO OTHER REGULAR VERB FORMS: -RE and –IR. 2. REGULAR –RE verbsExample 1. DESCENDREJe descendSTu descendSIl descendNous descendONSVous descendEZIls descendENT Example 2. PERDRE (or VENDRE)Je perdSTu perdSIl perdNous perdONSVous perdEZIls perdENT 3. REGULAR –IR verbsExample 1. CHOISIRJe choisiSTu choisiSIl choisiTNous choisiSSONSVous choisiSSEZIls choisiSSENT Example 2. FINIRJe finiSTu finiSIl finiTNous finiSSONSVous finiSSEZIls finiSSENT So, it is not that difficult for these regular verbs. Take the time to try conjugating other similar verbs in the same way to understand how to do that.And – learn to say them correctly also. The last syllable in all of these –ER verbs should sound the same too! The same goes for the others - -RE and - IR too.Check ��Learn French With Alexa” videos on YouTube. She has many lessons on verb conjugation.Learn them and say them with/after her – which is part of learning too.Download the videos and play them over and over.Cheers.