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OF FRENCH Lesson
04
AS A FOREIGN
LANGUAGE

Starter Pack
‘First Group’ verbs
(in the present tense)

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 Starter Pack: lesson 4
Topic : ‘1st Group’ verbs
• danser: [to dance]
• chanter: [to sing]
• voyager: [to travel]
• donner : [to give]
• regarder: [to watch]
Dialogue

From the moment we come into the world, our lives are determined Note
by actions. When it comes to learning a language, these actions are
articulated by means of verbs. In this lesson, we take an overview of adorer
the Present Tense of regular verbs, in other words verbs that describe [= to adore]
what we are doing right now, or what we do in general. For the
purposes of this basic lesson, we’ll talk about ‘1st Group’ verbs. Study the full conjugation of this ‘first group’ verb,
below. Note the 1st Group endings, in particular :
adorer [= to adore]
To get started, can you tell us a little about 1st Group verbs? There j’adore....................I adore
are many of these in French, right?… tu adores................you adore
That’s right. 1st Group verbs are those whose infinitives end in il/elle adore............he/she adores
‘–er’. In French, we call the verb ending ‘la terminaison’. In the on adore.................we/people adore
case of 1st Group verbs, la terminaison sounds like –ay. [‘–er] nous adorons.........we adore
vous adorez............you adore
ils/elles adorent.....they adore
Now, just to clarify, the infinitive – that’s the form of the verb we’ll
find in the dictionary when we look up ‘to eat’, ‘to drink’, ‘to dance’,
and so on. Let’s take a couple of examples of these 1st Group verbs to
make things clearer. Amélie, what is the verb ‘to adore’ in French?
adorer
Note
adorer voyager
[= to travel]
… and ‘to sing’, that’s…
chanter voyager is also a ‘first group’ verb. Such verbs are
recognisable by their infinitive ending in ‘-er’.
chanter
voyager [= to travel]
… and ‘to travel’? je voyage................I travel
voyager tu voyages..............you travel
voyager il/elle voyage..........he/she travel
on voyage...............we/people travel
nous voyageons.....we travel
And we can hear clearly that distinctive verb ending in ‘–er’.
vous voyagez..........you travel
Now this is just the beginning. Each and every verb has its own ils/elles voyagent...they travel
conjugation. That’s the set of forms of the verb. Just as in English,
we say ‘I dance’, ‘You dance’, ‘He dances’, ‘She dances’, and so on, we
have an equivalent set of forms – an equivalent conjugation – in *Watch the anomaly in the 1st person plural! The
French. Let’s hear one such conjugation. This time we’ll take as our same anomaly is found in the verb manger [= to eat].
example the verb ‘to give’, which is…
donner
donner

So that our listeners can have one example to work from, I’ll give
the English form and you, Amélie, give the French equivalent. Let’s
begin. ‘I give’…
Je donne.
Je donne. Note
‘You give’ Je donne…
Tu donnes. [= I give]
Where you see Tu donnes.
Note that, despite the spellings, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd
this symbol  …
person singular, as well as the 3rd person plural have
‘He gives’ the exact same pronunciation:
  … it’s your turn
to repeat what
Il donne. je donne – tu donnes – il donne –
you’ve heard. Il donne. ils donnent
Then we’ll
repeat once
more.

2 © Plus Publications, 2008. All rights reserved.

 Starter Pack: lesson 4
Topic : ‘1st Group’ verbs
• danser: [to dance]
• chanter: [to sing]
• voyager: [to travel]
• donner : [to give]
• regarder: [to watch]
Dialogue

‘She gives’
Elle donne
Note
Elle donne Vous donnez…
[= You give.]
‘One gives’ or ‘People give’
On donne The 2nd person plural is pronounced in the same
way as the infinitive – donner.
On donne
Consider these examples:
donner – vous donnez
‘We give’ adorer – vous adorez
Nous donnons chanter – vous chantez
Nous donnons voyager – vous voyagez

‘You give’
Vous donnez
Vous donnez

‘They give’
Ils donnent
Ils donnent
Note
… and ‘They give’, when referring to more than one girl… Ils donnent …
Elles donnent [= They give …]
Elles donnent
Ils is a personal pronoun. Consider the group of
But, wait a minute, we need to backpedal for a moment. In fact, we personal pronouns in French :
had ‘You give’ twice.
je.............................I
That’s right. In French, when addressing someone, we have tu............................you
two forms of ‘you’, one formal and one informal. When il..............................he
addressing someone we know well – a family member, or a elle..........................she
friend, for example – we’ll use the pronoun ‘Tu’. On the other on............................one / we / people
hand, addressing someone we don’t know quite so well – a nous........................we
superior, a business acquaintance, a school principal, for vous........................you
ils............................they
example – we’ll use the formal pronoun ‘Vous’. We’ll also use elles........................they
‘vous’ when addressing a group of people.

And, what about the plural personal pronoun ‘They’? You have two Note that il and elle can also apply to things and
versions in French, right? animals:
That’s right. If the ‘they’ is referring to a group of boys – or a Julie chante. –> Elle chante.
Le coq chante. –> Il chante.
mixed group of both boys and girls – we’ll use the masculine La maison est grande. = Elle est grande.
plural pronoun ‘Ils’. If there are only girls in the group, we’ll use
the feminine plural pronoun, ‘Elles’.

And we should note, too, that quite often the singular and plural
3rd person pronouns sound the same! For example, if we are
talking about one boy who sings, we might say…
Il chante.
Where you see Il chante.
this symbol  …
And talking about a group of boys singing, we’ll also say…
  … it’s your turn
to repeat what
Ils chantent.
you’ve heard. Ils chantent.
Then we’ll
repeat once
more.

© Plus Publications, 2008. All rights reserved. 3

 Starter Pack: lesson 4
Topic : ‘1st Group’ verbs
• danser: [to dance]
• chanter: [to sing]
• voyager: [to travel]
• donner : [to give]
• regarder: [to watch]
Dialogue

Similarly, if we are talking about one girl who sings, we might say…
Elle chante.
Elle chante.
And talking about a group of girls singing, we’ll also say…
Elles chantent.
Elles chantent.
The spelling of these two expressions is different, but the
pronuncation is exactly the same.
And, one last thing, Amélie, what about those 3rd person singular
pronouns, we had ‘Je’, ‘tu’, ‘il’, ‘elle’, and…
… on
on
That pronoun means ‘one’, right?
That’s right. ‘On’ can refer, in general, to ‘people’ when we are
not specifying exactly which people. For example, if we say
‘People eat rice in Japan’, we would say ‘On mange du riz au
Japon’. We should also note that, in spoken, casual language,
‘on’ very often means ‘we’. In other words, it functions in the
same way as ‘nous’.
Note
Nous regardons la télé.
[= We watch TV.]
Depending on the context, regarder can mean ‘to
watch’ or ‘to look at’. When used in the context of
‘looking at’ (someone, etc), there is no need for a
preposition in French: it is ‘built-in’ to the French verb:
Elle me regarde. [= She is looking at me.]
regarder [= to look at / to watch]
je regarde.......................I watch
tu regardes.....................you watch
il/elle regarde.................he/she watches
on regarde......................we/people watch
nous regardons...............we watch
vous regardez................. you watch
ils/elles regardent..........they watch

So, to say ‘We’re watching TV’, we would make use of the verb ‘to
watch’, which is…
regarder
regarder

And you could say either…

Nous regardons la télé.
Nous regardons la télé.

… or, in a casual sense:

On regarde la télé.
On regarde la télé.

Amélie, there are also ‘2nd Group’ verbs which end in ‘–ir’. We’ll talk
about these in an upcoming lesson but, for today, that’s it for this
lesson. Until next time…
À la prochaine!

Where you see

this symbol  …

  … it’s your turn

to repeat what
you’ve heard.
Then we’ll
repeat once
more.

4 © Plus Publications, 2008. All rights reserved.

 Starter Pack: lesson 4
Topic : ‘1st Group’ verbs
• danser: [to dance]
• chanter: [to sing]
• voyager: [to travel]
• donner : [to give]
• regarder: [to watch]
Dialogue

If you understood our lesson, then you should be able to translate  … Vocab extra   !
Now it’s your turn  …

1. We sing. • chanter...................to sing

2. They sing. • coq (m)...................cock
[Suppose you are talking Mr and Mrs Smith.] • maison (f)...............house
3. We watch TV.
4. I dance – he sings.
5. They travel regularly.
[Suppose you are talking about Claire and Hélène; régulièrement]

See how you have fared in the exercise above by clicking on the graphic.
(We’ll post the answers on our website shortly after this lesson has been released.)
click!

Got an idea for a lesson ?  … click!

Seen a typo ?  … click!

Tell us what you’d like us to discuss. Please let us know where.

© Plus Publications, 2008. All rights reserved. 5