Leçon n°9 – Les verbes du 2e groupe (conjugaison au présent de l’indicatif)

We have learned how to conjugate the verbs of the 1st group (ending with –er), now it is time to learn how to conjugate the verbs of the 2nd group (ending with -ir).

All the verbs of the second group end with –ir, such as:

(Be carefull, some verbs ending with –ir do not belong to the 2nd group, but to the 3rd group. Their conjugation is quite different and a little more difficult, we will learn that later on. For the moment, let’s focus on the 2nd group.)

The conjugation of the 2nd group in the present tense is quite easy. As you can see below, the ending is always (-is, -is, -it, -issons, -issez, -issent):

Please watch this lesson’s video for the pronunciation:

Please find below some new vocabulary:

Here are the examples seen in the video:

 This lesson’s test is coming soon 🙂

In this lesson, we are going to learn the negation in French.

Negative sentences in French are a little more complicated than in English. We will learn all the different types of negation later on, but today we will focus on the most common one “ne….pas” which is in general the translation of “not.”

The conjugated verb will come in the middle of  “ne …… pas” as you can see in the examples below.

Examples:
Je suis Pierre.  =>   Je ne suis pas Pierre
(I am Pierre.       =>   I am not Pierre.)

Je ne parle pas anglais => I do not speak English
Elles ne parlent pas français => They do not speak French.

As we have seen before, in order to facilitate the pronunciation, when the verb starts with a vowel or a silent « h », we will need to make a contraction.

Je (ne ) n’ai pas faim => I am not hungry.
Nous n’habitons pas en France => We do not live in France.

This lesson’s vocabulary:

*américain  => masculine gender
*américaine => feminine gender

Please watch this lesson’s video for the pronunciation:

Like in English, it is common to use informal contractions when speaking casually or writing to friends. In French, for those situations, we will get rid of the first part of the negation « ne…pas »

Examples:
Je suis pas Pierre => I’m not Pierre.
Il est pas chinois => He isn’t Chinese.
Elles parlent pas français  => they don’t speak French
J’ai pas faim => I’m not hungry
Nous habitons pas en France = We don’t live in France

In this lesson, we are going to learn some new vocabulary, different ways to ask questions with “COMMENT” (how) and how to answer these questions.

You will find below some new vocabulary for this lesson. We will get in more details in a future lesson about adjectives in French.
An adjective is a word describing the noun it is attached to. In French, the adjective follow the noun’s gender and number.

Please watch the video of this lesson:

Asking a question with “COMMENT”

• The easiest way to make a question with “COMMENT” is as follow. This is also a casual and informal way to ask a question.

Other examples:

1. La maison est comment ? (How is the house?)
2. L’appartement est comment ? (How is the apartment?)
3. Julia est comment ? (How is Julia?)
4. Le gâteau est comment ? (How is the cake?)

The answer to this question follow the same pattern as the question:

• The second way is a little more formal and is very similar to English with the inversion of the subject and the verb.

Other examples:

1. Comment est l’appartement ?
2. Comment est la maison ?
3. Comment est la tarte ?
4. Comment est-elle ?

In our introduction to French, we learned that contrary to English, French nouns have a gender that affect the articles you use with them. The nouns are either of masculine or feminine gender. The gender of the noun will be learned along with the vocabulary as there are no reliable rules to determine gender in advance (except examples where gender is obvious like ‘woman’, ‘man’, ‘boy’ etc.).  In this lesson, we are going to focus on the French articles that define the gender of the nouns.

The indefinite articles “un” and “une” are the translations for English articles “a” and “an.” These articles make things unspecific. For example, “je veux une pomme” (I want an apple) so that means I want any kind of apple, I did not define the noun.
“DES“ is the plural of “un” and “une.” “DES“ could be translated by ∅ (nothing) in English, and sometimes by some or several.
Ex.: “Je veux des pommes” = I want apples / I want some apples

The definite articles “le,” “la” and “les” = “the” in English. When the noun start with a vowel or a “h”, we get rid of the vowel of the articles “le” or “la” and we use “l’” instead. The definite articles refers to a something very specific. For example, “Je veux la pomme” (I want the apple), this means that we might have talked about a specific apple and it is this specific apple that I want.

Examples:

• un homme (a man)
• une femme (a woman)
• l’homme (the man)
• la femme (the woman)

Examples:

In this lesson, we will learn a little dialogue with some basic words and the conjugation of the verbs “s’appeler” and “habiter” in the present tense.

Please watch the video of our Lesson 4 below:

Dialogue of the video:

The verbs “s’appeler” and “habiter” both end with –er, in their infinitive forms, which make them part of the 1st group of verbs. The conjugation of the verbs of the 1st group at the present tense always follows the same endings as you can see below:

Be careful  JE  is written J’ when the conjugate verb starts with a vowel or a silent H. It makes the pronunciation smoother and easier.

The verb “habiter” is usually followed by a place/somewhere etc. It means to live/to reside. You cannot use “habiter” to translate “to live a healthy lifestyle” for example.  The verb “habiter” is only used when you are talking in the context of residency as in “He lives in the red house.” or (more unusually) “A ghost is living inside me.”

s’appeler litteraly means: to be called / to be named
but it is usually translated as:
to be (+ one’s name)
one’s name is…

However, when s’appeler is conjugated in plural like “nous nous appelons” for example, it could mean “we call each other.” The context will let you guess the meaning.

Examples:

• je m’appelle Franck => I am Franck / my name is Franck
• nous nous appelons Franck et Annie => we are named Franck and Annie / our names are Franck and Annie
• nous nous appelons tous les jours => we call each other every day
• ils s’appellent souvent => they often call each other