Future Tense

There are three major groups of regular verbs which can be told apart by their ending. These simple forms of the verb are called infinitives.

-ER verbs (e.g. regarder)

-IR verbs (e.g. finir)

-RE verbs (e.g. vendre)

There are some verbs which have minor but predictable irregularities.

Unfortunately, some verbs are completely irregular and unpredictable – you will have to learn these individually.

For most verbs the future tense is based on the infinitive (the simplest form of the verb) – i.e. you add the future tense endings to the infinitive.

For -RE verbs, the final -E is dropped before adding the future tense ending.

The stem of all verbs, both regular and irregular, in the future tense end in -R.