Irregular French Verbs - Verbes du troisième groupe


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Verbes du troisième groupe

Native French-speaking grammarians classify verbs into three categories:

Verbes du 1er groupe	la 1re conjugaison	"regular" –er verbs
Verbes du 2e groupe	la 2e conjugaison	regular –ir verbs
Verbes du 3e groupe	verbes irréguliers	irregular verbs

I don’t like this system at all, because two of the categories are far too broad.

Verbes du premier groupe includes regular –er verbs, spelling change verbs, and stem-changing verbs. Though they do take the same verb endings, spelling change verbs require letter changes/additions and stem-changing verbs have two stems. I just don’t see how these can be considered "regular" since they require explanations beyond just the endings.

And verbes du troisième groupe is enormous: it includes aller, envoyer, irregular –ir verbs, and all –re verbs – it’s just a big mishmash.

Learning French verb conjugations is all about finding patterns, and there are a lot that get lost in such huge, catch-all categories. So I find it helpful to use my own system: