Build present-tense activity sentences

By UK GCSE French · independent study · myAudience

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Build present-tense activity sentences

An infinitive names an action without assigning it to a person: parler means to speak and habiter means to live in a place. For regular er verbs, remove er to find the stem, then select the ending for the subject. The written endings are e, es, e, ons, ez, ent for je, tu, il/elle/on, nous, vous, ils/elles. Not every verb ending in er is regular; aller is an important exception.

Use habiter to connect a person with a place: j’habite, tu habites, elle habite, nous habitons, vous habitez, ils habitent. The h in habiter is silent, so je becomes j’. A written ending can matter even when several forms sound similar. Reading and writing practice help you attend to information that spelling carries.

French present tense can correspond to either the English simple or continuous present. « Nous parlons français » may mean we speak French or we are speaking French. Context decides. There is no need to insert an extra être merely because the English meaning includes are speaking.

Vocabulary in a fictional neighbourhood description: une ville means a town or city, un parc is a park and près de means near. « J’habite près du parc. Nous parlons dans le jardin. » Du combines de and le, but the key verb contrast here is j’habite versus nous parlons. Do not treat every French-speaking community as identical.

Worked example: Write “We live in a town” using habiter and une ville.

Choose nous for we.

Remove er from habiter and add ons.

Add dans une ville to express in a town.

Answer: Nous habitons dans une ville.

Check your understanding: Complete « Tu ___ français » with parler.

Answer: Tu parles français.

Why: Tu requires es in this regular present pattern, not the nous ending ons.