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In French, the equivalent of the English existential clause "there is/are" is expressed with il y a (infinitive: y avoir), literally, "it there has" or "it has to it". As an impersonal verb, the verb may be conjugated to indicate tense, but always remains in the third person singular. For example Il y a deux bergers et quinze moutons dans le pré.
French verbs have a large number of simple (one-word) forms. These are composed of two distinct parts: the stem (or root, or radix), which indicates which verb it is, and the ending (inflection), which indicates the verb's tense (imperfect, present, future etc.) and mood and its subject's person (I, you, he/she etc.) and number, though many endings can correspond to multiple tense-mood-subject ...
The imperative suffixes moi + en and moi + y give as a result m’en and m’y, and analogically toi + en and toi + y become t’en and t’y. However, in colloquial speech the expressions moi-z-en, toi-z-en; moi-z-y and toi-z-y have become widespread (also registered as -z’en and -z’y).
The table at the right shows the main verb forms, with examples for -ar, -er and -ir verbs (based on parlar 'to speak', vider 'to see', and audir 'to hear'). The simple past, future, and conditional tenses correspond to semantically identical compound tenses (composed of auxiliary verbs plus infinitives or past participles).
1st conjugation: verbs ending in -er (except aller. There are about 6000 verbs in this group. [2] 2nd conjugation: verbs ending in -ir, with the present participle ending in -issant. There are about 300 verbs in this group. [2] 3rd group: All other verbs: verbs with infinitives in -re, -oir, -ir with the present participle ending in -ant, the ...
Plurality is most commonly shown by the ending-s (or -es), whereas possession is always shown by the enclitic-'s or, for plural forms ending in s, by just an apostrophe. Consider, for example, the forms of the noun girl. Most speakers pronounce all forms other than the singular plain form (girl) exactly the same. [note 1]
If you've been having trouble with any of the connections or words in Wednesday's puzzle, you're not alone and these hints should definitely help you out. Plus, I'll reveal the answers further ...
The third conjugation class consists of all other verbs: aller, arguably (r)envoyer, a number of verbs in -ir (including all verbs in -oir, which is an etymologically unrelated ending), and all verbs in -re. Nonetheless, this class is very small compared to the other two, though it does contain some of the most common verbs. This class has a ...