Regular -RE Verbs in French

In Brief

For a regular French -RE verb, remove -re from the infinitive (the dictionary form) and add -s, -s, nothing, -ons, -ez, -ent. With attendre, this gives j’attends, tu attends, il attend, nous attendons, vous attendez, ils attendent. The third-person singular form has no added ending.

Overview

Regular -RE verbs form a useful French conjugation group. A conjugation is the set of forms a verb takes to match its subject—the person or thing doing the action—and its tense. At A1, you meet this pattern in common verbs such as attendre (to wait), vendre (to sell), répondre (to answer), and descendre (to go down).

The basic rule is consistent: take off the final -re and attach the present-tense ending that matches je, tu, il/elle/on, nous, vous, or ils/elles. Unlike English, French normally changes the verb for every grammatical person, even though several of the resulting forms sound alike.

This pattern does not cover every verb whose infinitive ends in -re. Frequent verbs such as prendre (to take), mettre (to put), lire (to read), and faire (to do or make) have other patterns. Learn the reliable regular pattern first; the main exceptions are separated in Beyond the Basics below.

How It Works

Build the present tense

The infinitive is the form listed in a dictionary, such as attendre. The stem is the part left after you remove the infinitive ending:

• attendre − re = attend-
• vendre − re = vend-
• répondre − re = répond-
• descendre − re = descend-

Add these endings to the stem:

Subject	Ending	attendre	Usual English meaning
je	-s	j’attends	I wait / I am waiting
tu	-s	tu attends	you wait / you are waiting
il / elle / on	—	il attend	he waits / he is waiting
nous	-ons	nous attendons	we wait / we are waiting
vous	-ez	vous attendez	you wait / you are waiting
ils / elles	-ent	ils attendent	they wait / they are waiting

The dash means add no ending. The stem itself is the il/elle/on form: elle vend, on répond, il descend. Do not add -e by analogy with regular -ER verbs.

French has one ordinary present tense where English often chooses between the simple present and the present progressive. Depending on context, J’attends Paul can mean “I wait for Paul” or “I’m waiting for Paul.” You do not need an equivalent of English “am” before the French verb.

A second complete model: vendre

Subject	Form	Translation
je	je vends	I sell / I am selling
tu	tu vends	you sell / you are selling
il / elle / on	elle vend	she sells / she is selling
nous	nous vendons	we sell / we are selling
vous	vous vendez	you sell / you are selling
ils / elles	elles vendent	they sell / they are selling

Elision before a vowel

Je becomes j’ before a vowel sound. This shortening is called elision (dropping a vowel and replacing it with an apostrophe):

• j’attends, not je attends
• j’entends, not je entends

Other subject pronouns remain separate: tu attends, elle entend, nous attendons.

What the forms sound like

Spelling shows six forms, but speech groups them differently. In attendre, the forms j’attends, tu attends, and il/elle/on attend are pronounced alike; their final written consonants are silent. In ils/elles attendent, the -ent ending is silent, but the final consonant of the stem is heard. This creates a real sound contrast between singular il attend and plural ils attendent.

Forms	Main pronunciation point
j’attends, tu attends, il attend	same verb sound; final d/s not pronounced
nous attendons	-ons is pronounced
vous attendez	-ez sounds like “ay” in a close English approximation
ils attendent	-ent is silent, but the stem’s d is pronounced

The subject often supplies an additional clue in speech. In nous attendons and vous attendez, the final consonant of the pronoun links to the following vowel sound. This linking is called liaison: you hear a z sound between the two words.

Common verbs that use the pattern

Verb	Basic meaning	Example form
attendre	to wait; to wait for	nous attendons
vendre	to sell	elle vend
répondre	to answer, reply	vous répondez
descendre	to go down; take down	ils descendent
entendre	to hear	j’entends
perdre	to lose	tu perds
rendre	to return, give back; make	on rend
défendre	to defend; forbid	elles défendent

Compounds generally keep the pattern of their base verb: attendre and entendre, for example, share the same endings. Meaning still has to be learned separately; similar spelling does not make the verbs interchangeable.

Questions and negatives

The conjugated form stays the same in a negative sentence. Put ne before the verb and pas after it:

• Je n’attends pas le bus. — I’m not waiting for the bus.
• Nous ne vendons pas cette maison. — We are not selling this house.

Before a vowel sound, ne becomes n’. In everyday speech, speakers frequently leave out ne and say J’attends pas, but ne … pas is the safe form for careful speech and writing.

For an easy spoken question, use est-ce que plus normal word order: Est-ce que vous attendez quelqu’un ? You may also use rising intonation: Vous attendez quelqu’un ? Formal inversion is possible—Attendez-vous quelqu’un ?—but it is not needed to understand the conjugation pattern.

Examples in Context

French	English	Note
J’attends le bus.	I’m waiting for the bus.	attendre normally takes its object directly.
Tu attends une réponse.	You’re waiting for an answer.	tu form in -s.
Il vend sa voiture.	He is selling his car.	No added ending after vend-.
On vend du pain ici.	They sell bread here.	on uses the singular form.
Nous répondons au téléphone.	We answer the phone.	répondre à becomes répondre au before téléphone.
Vous répondez à mes questions.	You answer my questions.	vous may address one person formally or several people.
Elles descendent l’escalier.	They are going down the stairs.	The stem’s final d is heard in the plural verb.
Je descends au prochain arrêt.	I’m getting off at the next stop.	descendre can mean getting off transport.
Nous entendons de la musique.	We hear music.	entendre follows the same pattern.
Tu perds souvent tes clés.	You often lose your keys.	perdre is regular in this pattern.
Le magasin rend la monnaie.	The shop gives change.	rendre la monnaie is a fixed everyday expression.
Ils défendent leur équipe.	They defend their team.	Plural -ent is written but not pronounced.
Je ne réponds pas tout de suite.	I don’t reply immediately.	Negative form around the conjugated verb.
Est-ce que vous attendez Marie ?	Are you waiting for Marie?	Neutral question with est-ce que.

Common Mistakes

Keeping the infinitive ending

• Wrong: Nous attendre le train.
• Right: Nous attendons le train.
• Why: A present-tense verb must be conjugated. Remove -re and add -ons for nous.

Adding an ending to il, elle, or on

• Wrong: Elle vende des livres.
• Right: Elle vend des livres.
• Why: The regular -RE present has no added third-person singular ending. Vende is not the ordinary present indicative form here.

Pronouncing written endings separately

• Wrong: Pronouncing the final letters of tu attends as though every letter had its own sound.
• Right: In ordinary pronunciation, j’attends, tu attends, and il attend have the same verb sound.
• Why: French spelling preserves distinctions that are often silent. Let the subject word and context identify the person.

Treating every -RE verb as regular

• Wrong: Nous prendons le métro.
• Right: Nous prenons le métro.
• Why: Prendre ends in -re but does not follow the regular pattern throughout. Check a dictionary when learning a new -RE verb.

Copying English prepositions

• Wrong: J’attends pour le bus.
• Right: J’attends le bus.
• Why: English says “wait for,” but French normally uses attendre directly before the person or thing awaited. By contrast, répondre commonly uses à: répondre à une question.

Using an English-style progressive construction

• Wrong: Je suis attendre le bus.
• Right: J’attends le bus.
• Why: The ordinary French present can express both “I wait” and “I am waiting.” Être plus an infinitive does not form the progressive.

Usage Notes

The pronoun on uses the same verb form as il and elle: on attend, on vend, on répond. In modern conversation, on very often means “we,” even though its verb remains grammatically singular. On attend dehors can therefore mean “We’re waiting outside.”

Vous has two jobs: it addresses several people, and it addresses one person politely or formally. The verb form is vous attendez in both cases. English “you” does not display this distinction, so the situation—not the translation—tells you which meaning is intended.

Some verbs need a preposition that English does not predict. Learn the verb with its normal pattern: attendre quelqu’un (wait for someone), répondre à quelqu’un (reply to someone), and descendre de la voiture (get out of the car). These are vocabulary and sentence-building choices, not changes to the conjugation itself.

French often omits a subject noun by replacing it with a pronoun, but it does not normally omit the subject altogether. Say Marie vend sa voiture or Elle vend sa voiture, not simply Vend sa voiture when you mean “She is selling her car.” This differs from languages in which the verb ending routinely makes a subject pronoun unnecessary.

Beyond the Basics

You do not need to master the following points at A1, but they explain forms you will encounter later.

Similar endings do not guarantee the same pattern

The label “regular -RE verbs” is a learning shortcut, not a promise about all verbs ending in those letters. Several important families behave differently:

Verb	A form to notice	Why it is different
prendre	nous prenons, ils prennent	stem changes in the plural
mettre	je mets, nous mettons	singular and plural stems differ
lire	je lis, nous lisons	does not keep the simple written stem expected from the beginner rule
faire	je fais, vous faites	highly irregular forms

Learn these as separate verb families rather than forcing them into the attendre model.

Descendre and past-tense auxiliaries

In the present, descendre follows the regular pattern whether it is used without a direct object (Elle descend) or with one (Elle descend les valises). In the compound past tense, however, its meaning and sentence structure can affect whether French uses être or avoir: Elle est descendue but Elle a descendu les valises. This is a later past-tense issue; it does not change the present forms taught here.

Rendre in wider expressions

Beyond its basic meaning “to give back,” rendre appears in common constructions such as rendre visite à quelqu’un (to visit someone), rendre service (to do a favor), and rendre quelqu’un heureux (to make someone happy). The present-tense endings remain regular: je rends, nous rendons, ils rendent.

Written and spoken contrast

Written French clearly distinguishes attend, attendons, attendez, and attendent. Spoken French relies on a smaller number of sound patterns, pronouns, liaison, and context. This is why it helps to learn each verb both as a written paradigm and as short spoken phrases rather than memorizing letters alone.

Practice Tips

1. Use one model verb as a template. Write j’attends, tu attends, il attend, nous attendons, vous attendez, ils attendent from memory. Then replace the stem with vend-, répond-, and perd-.
2. Practice contrasts aloud. Say pairs such as il attend / ils attendent and elle vend / elles vendent. Focus on the consonant heard in the plural form, not on pronouncing -ent.
3. Learn verbs inside short patterns. Memorize attendre le bus, répondre à un message, descendre de la voiture, and perdre ses clés. This trains conjugation and the correct preposition or object structure together.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Subject Pronouns — review je, tu, il/elle/on, nous, vous, and ils/elles before matching them with verb endings.