French Present Tense Made Easy (Part 3): Master Regular RE Verbs

We have covered ER verbs and IR verbs in this series. Now we complete the picture with RE verbs, the third major group of regular French verbs. Once you are comfortable with all three patterns, you will be able to conjugate the overwhelming majority of verbs you encounter in French, both in exams and in daily conversation. 

The Golden Rule : Remove -re and then add the endings

Example: VENDRE (TO SELL)

Most Important -RE Verbs

• vendre – to sell
• attendre – to wait
• répondre – to answer / to respond
• perdre – to lose
• entendre – to hear
• descendre – to go down / to descend 
• rendre – to give back / to return something 
• défendre – to defend 
• mordre – to bite 

• suspendre – to suspend / to hang 
• dépendre – to depend 
• correspondre – to correspond 

 Quick Tip – Learn endings, not each verb. Practice with 5 verbs daily. Read aloud. Use verbs in complete sentences.

Exercice !

A. Conjugate the verb in brackets into the correct present tense form.

1. Tu _______ (attendre) le bus depuis longtemps ?

2. Nous _______ (vendre) notre voiture.

3. Il _______ (répondre) à toutes les questions.

4. Vous _______ (perdre) souvent vos clés.

5. Elles _______ (descendre) à la prochaine station.

6. Tu _______ (entendre) ce bruit ?

7. Ils _______ (rendre) les livres à la bibliothèque.

Answer Key

A. Conjugate the verb in brackets into the correct present tense form.

1. attends
2. vendons
3. répond
4. perdez
5. descendent
6. entends
7. rendent

A pattern worth noticing!

If you line up ER, IR and RE verbs side by side, you will start to notice something useful. The “ils/elles” form almost always ends in “ent” and it is almost always silent. The “nous” form almost always ends in “ons” and the “vous” form almost always ends in “ez.” These are reliable markers across nearly all regular verbs, and recognizing them quickly will help you a lot, especially in listening and reading sections of exams.

At this point, you have covered the three major regular verb groups in French present tense: ER, IR and RE. Most verbs you encounter going forward will fit into one of these three patterns, with a smaller number of irregular verbs like être, avoir, aller, faire, etc. needing to be learned separately, since they do not follow any of these regular patterns at all.

The biggest mistake students make is trying to memorize every verb individually instead of recognizing which group it belongs to. Once you see a new verb and immediately think “that’s an ER verb” or “that follows the RE pattern,” conjugating it becomes far less stressful and far more automatic.

With ER, IR, and RE verbs covered, you now have the foundation to handle the vast majority of present-tense verbs in French. The next logical step is to focus on the small group of irregular verbs that come up constantly in everyday French. For now, practice recognizing which group a new verb belongs to every time you come across one. That single habit will save you far more time than memorizing conjugations one by one.

Need Help Improving Your French Journey?

At LingoRelic Language Academy, we focus on pronunciation, sentence formation and practical communication so that grammar becomes something you actually use, not something you simply memorize.

Whether you’re preparing for DELF, DALF, TEF Canada or TCF Canada, our goal is simple: Help you think in French and communicate with confidence. You know where to reach us.