French Stem-Changing Verbs -e_er -é_er -yer - Lawless French Conjugations

Verbes à deux radicaux

There doesn’t seem to be an official name for them in French,* but in English, verbs with two different stems or radicals in the present tense may be called stem-changing verbs, shoe verbs, or boot verbs. The last two names come from the fact that a line drawn around the stem-changed, present tense conjugations creates a shoe or boot.**

Stem-changing verbs take the same conjugation endings as regular -er verbs, but have two different verb stems depending on the grammatical person the verb is conjugated for: the first and second person plural use the same stem as the infinitive, while all of the singular conjugations as well as the third person plural have slightly different stem. Though there are different types of stem-changed verbs, the grammatical persons and tenses affected are the same for all of them, so once you learn the patterns, you can conjugate any stem-changing verb.

There are fewer than 100 stem-changing verbs, all recognizable by the last four letters of the infinitive. They fall into seven conjugation groups which can be reduced to three patterns.

1. Accent grave verbs

All verbs that end in –é_er change the é to è in the stem-changed conjugations:***

altérer – to alter
céder – to give up, dispose of
célébrer – to celebrate
compléter – to complete
considérer – to consider
différer – to differ
espérer – to hope
exagérer – to exaggerate
gérer – to manage
inquiéter – to worry
modérer – to moderate
pénétrer – to enter
posséder – to possess
préférer – to prefer
protéger – to protect (note that protéger is also a spelling change verb)
refléter – to reflect
répéter – to repeat
révéler – to reveal
suggérer – to suggest
zébrer – to stripe

Most verbs that end in –e_er change the e muet (the penultimate e) to è:

acheter – to buy
amener – to take
ciseler – to chisel, carve
corseter – to constrain, constrict
crocheter – to crochet, to pick (a lock)
démanteler – to dismantle, demolish
écarteler – to tear apart
emmener – to take
enlever – to remove
fileter – to thread
fureter – to rummage, nose about
geler – to freeze
haleter – to pant
harceler – to harass
lever – to lift, raise
marteler – to hammer, pound
mener – to lead
modeler – to model, shape
peler – to peel
peser – to weigh
promener – to walk

A few verbs that end in –eler and –eter undergo a different stem change:

2. Doubled consonant verbs

Instead of following the above pattern, the following French verbs that end in –eler and –eter double the l or t in the stem-changed conjugations.

appeler – to call
chanceler – to totter, wobble
épeler – to spell
rappeler – to call back, recall
renouveler – to renew
ruisseler – to flow, stream
feuilleter – to leaf through
hoqueter – to hiccup
jeter – to throw
projeter – to project
rejeter – to reject

3. Y to I verbs

Verbs that end in –ayer, –oyer, or –uyer stem-change the Y to an I.

For –oyer and –uyer verbs, the stem change is required.

broyer – to grind
employer – to employ
envoyer – to send
nettoyer – to clean
se noyer – to drown
renvoyer – to fire
tutoyer – to use tu
vouvoyer – to use vous
appuyer – to lean, press
ennuyer – to bore
essuyer – to wipe

For –ayer verbs, the stem change is optional: both je paie and je paye are correct.

balayer – to sweep
effrayer – to frighten
égayer – to cheer up
essayer – to try
payer – to pay
rayer – to draw a line (on/through), to cross out

Quiz: Stem-changing verbs

À noter

* Le Bon Usage discusses these supposedly "regular" verbs in a section called Observations sur le radical, b) Verbes en -er : faits aussi phonétique (as opposed to faits purement graphiques).

** The conjugations with stem changes vary by verb tense and mood:

In the present tense, subjunctive, and imperative, the stem change occurs in all conjugations except nous and vous.
In the future and conditional, the stem change occurs in all conjugations.***
However, in the imperfect, present participle, past participle, passé simple, and imperfect subjunctive, there is no stem change.