Etre conjugation French all tenses. Verb etre: conjugation and use

Remember that everything you learn must be spoken out loud, listening to the voiceover of both the lesson itself and the answers to the exercises. Don’t be afraid if you are not yet strong in the rules of reading - just repeat after the announcer and return to the French phonetics course.
The pronunciation will pick up on its own in the process of working with the French language.

  Listen to the audio lesson with additional explanations

In French, as in all other European languages, you cannot simply say:

I'm beautiful, he's weird, they're at home, you're at work.

Get used to what any foreigner will say:

I There is beautiful, she There is weird, they There is at home, you There is At work.

The so-called verb be– one of the most important verbs in any foreign language.

The English have “to be.” The Germans have sein.
The Italians have essere. For the French, être means to be.

Conjugation of the verb être (to be)

The French language has the following pronouns:

Negative form of the verb être (to be)

Before the verb - ne, after the verb - pas:

ne + verb+pas

Interrogative form of the verb être (to be)

How the question is asked depends on the situation and who you are asking.

The best interrogative phrase is the one with est-ce que.

Set expressions with the verb être (to be)

There are a lot of fixed expressions with the verb être in French that will greatly embellish and enrich your speech at the start of learning French:

Good, verb be You will always use with:

• nouns- "Who? what?”: je suis femme au foyer (I am a housewife), il est un chômeur (he is unemployed), c"est ma soeur (this is my sister), c"est mon mari (this is my husband), c"est notre maison (this is our house) ;
• adjectives- "Which? which? which one?”: elle est gaie (she is cheerful), il est riche (he is rich), la maison est vieille (the house is old);
• adverb- “how?”: c"est compliqué (it’s difficult), c"est intéressant (it’s interesting), c"est bien / bon (this is good), c"est mauvais / mal (this is bad);
• or when answer the question " where?”: il est dans le parc (he’s in the park), je suis à la maison (I’m at home), mon mari est au travail (my husband is at work), ils sont en vacances (they are on vacation).

Coordination

What to pay attention to. In Russian we say:

I'm healthy, I'm healthy A, they are healthy s,
I'm busy, I'm busy A, they're busy s.

In grammar language this is called agree adjective in gender and number. If it’s simpler, then you need to put the correct endings.

It turns out that:

a man will always talk without ending
(i.e. as written in fixed expressions),
woman - ending -e,
they, we - with the ending -s.

Je suis content(-). - I'm pleased.
Je suis contente. - I am pleased.
Ils sont contents. – They are satisfied (men, m + f).
Elles sont contentes. – They are happy (women).

To summarize what you need to learn in this lesson:

• verb conjugations be and cases when it should be in a sentence,
• negation: before the verb – ne, after the verb – pas,
• question: turnover est-ce que,
• approval:
  - the man says without ending,
  – woman – with ending -e,
  – men – with the ending -s,
  – women – with the ending -es.

That's all!

Additionally, learn words from the lesson and from the exercises, look at additional grammar topics on the website, listen to the phonetics course, and most importantly, start speaking and using the knowledge from this lesson now in your life.

Good afternoon friends! Today I will tell you about one of the frequently used verbs in French - être. This word perfectly shows all the unusualness, diversity and variability. After all, it can be not only a verb, but also a noun, it can be translated or omitted during translation, it can be read in its entirety or give only one sound.

One thing is for sure: the French verb être is the first action word we are introduced to when we begin to learn the language.

From this article you will learn:

Subtleties of change

In French speech, unlike Russian, there are practically no statements without a predicate. Therefore, it is often être that takes the place of the untranslatable predicate. It can be translated (or mean): is, be, live, represent, is, exists.

If after “is” there is a definition, then its person and number must be the same as that of the subject:

Elle est grande. - It is high.

Ils sont grands. - They are tall.

If you want to say an impersonal sentence, then use the pronoun Il as the subject: Il est matin. - Morning.

In all of these examples, “is” is used in the simple present tense. But its conjugation does not occur according to the rules, because it belongs to the third group, that is, it is incorrect. To use it in speech, you need to remember the conjugation tables, the present simple (first column) is especially important:

Conjugation of the verb etre

Pay attention to the third tense. The verb used to form Passé compose in French is , so in this column you will find the conjugation of avoir with the verb être in the appropriate form, été.

If you study the table in more detail, you will see that in all complex tenses the two-part predicate consists of an inflected part, which is always inherent for a given tense and form of the verb être. And you ?
In general, the conjugation rules are quite simple and are not difficult to remember.

How to ask?

Interrogative sentences using “is, to be” are constructed in the same way as in all other cases:

1. Using reverse word order: Êtes-vous à la maison? – Are you at home?
2. Using the interrogative phrase est-ce que: Est-ce que tu es marié? - Are you married?
3. Make a statement with a questioning intonation.

Negation

If you want to get a negative statement, use the rule of two negative particles, characteristic of French speech. The diagram will help you:

Subject (noun or pronoun) +ne+ verb+ pas+ object, circumstance.

At the same time, remember the rules for replacing articles (un/une with the preposition de). And, of course, everything that concerns the merging of the first and last sounds of a word is appropriate in such phrases. This is what we get:

Let's check the result

If you have carefully read my story and looked at the tables, try the following exercise:
Match the conjugated forms of être in Imparfait with the correct pronoun.

a) j'
b)il
c)elles
d) nous
e)vous

Well, how did it all work out? If not, then go back to the first table and find the appropriate time there. If you still have questions, write in the comments, I will definitely answer.

Today I tried to tell you about the significance of être in French and the rules for its use. A basic French course via Skype, designed for 20 weeks, will help you better master these rules and easily use them in speech.

Here are the answers to the exercise above:

In the new article you will learn a lot more interesting and useful things about foreign languages ​​in simple words.

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In almost all languages, verbs change according to persons and numbers. This is called conjugation. Sometimes this happens according to general rules, but often the most used of them have to be learned by heart, because the formation of certain forms does not lend itself to any logic. And among them, of course, is "etre".

Conjugating regular verbs in French

It is difficult for a modern person to do without knowledge of English at least at an elementary level. Any travel, meeting with foreigners, interesting highly specialized articles - for all this you need to learn a foreign language. Most often, English is taught in schools, although French is no less important - the information on a driver’s license is duplicated in it. It is also one of the working languages ​​of the UN and its secretariat, and finally, it is simply beautiful and romantic. But learning it is not an easy task, primarily because of the grammar.

It is not difficult to remember how the so-called “regular” verbs change. There are two main groups with different endings, which are conjugated according to different principles. The easiest way to illustrate this is with a table:

Obviously, remembering these rules is not that difficult. But unfortunately,

Not all verbs are so simple in their changes. And these, of course, include être.

Conjugation of basic irregular verbs

It might seem that there are no particular difficulties in French grammar. But this is not entirely true. The main verbs - etre (to be) and avoir (to have) belong to the category of irregular ones. That is, their forms can only be learned; it is impossible to construct them based on general conjugation rules. What aggravates the problem is that these verbs often act as “links,” that is, they participate in the formation of more complex grammatical structures. But you shouldn’t immediately delve into the question; first you need to find out how these two verbs change.

completely different forms that also have to be learned.

Past and future tense

French has 8 tense forms, two of which are used only in writing. There are also 4 conditionals, subjunctive and imperative, as well as participles and constructions denoting the compassionate voice. That is, there are a total of 21 for each verb, including the infinitive. This number is a little scary. And all this must be mastered if you want to know French well. The conjugation of the verb etre, as already mentioned, does not follow general rules, which means that all its forms must be learned by heart

The complete table will look like this:

Yes, the variety of forms of French verbs is amazing. And all this will have to be memorized. The table shows only etre, the conjugation of which is an excellent example of how unpredictably irregular
Verbs. But there are a huge number of them. In fact, fear of irregular verbs should not stop anyone who wants to master French. Not all of these forms are actively used even by native speakers, and everything that is necessary can be memorized by regular practice.

Use of etre

Conjugating this verb may seem complicated - and it is. But you will have to learn all its forms, since you will have to use it constantly.

Firstly, it is present in phrases denoting the occupation, nationality or other qualities of a person:
Je suis étudiante. I am a student.

Secondly, it is used to designate states:
Je suis malade. I am sick.

Finally, it is used to form forms of some verbs:
Je suis allé. I went.

So you definitely shouldn’t neglect studying such an important verb. And its forms can be remembered in the process of mastering certain tenses, moods and other grammatical structures. Then the conjugation of the verb etre will not be like this

frightening - the main thing is to do everything gradually.

Examples from other languages

French is no exception in terms of irregular verb forms. For European languages ​​this is rather a rule. English to be, German sein, even Russian “to be”! The latter is not used as often as its counterparts in other languages, but it is undeniably incorrect. You can easily verify this by trying to conjugate it. In the present tense, he completely changes the basis to “is”; in the past and future it returns, and the change seems to occur according to the rules. However, it would be more correct to classify it as “incorrect”. So, before you think about how much you have to suffer while learning foreign languages, you should understand that your native language - Russian - can hardly be called simple.

In French, the verb être (to be) is used to describe a phenomenon, the state of an animate or inanimate object, to determine the type of activity, occupation, profession. The verb être is also used as an auxiliary when conjugating other verbs in complex tenses in French.
The verb être belongs to the third group of verbs and has special conjugation forms in almost all tenses. In this case, either the original verb root or a morpheme different from the verb root is used as a basis. As a rule, the conjugation of the verb être is learned by heart. Below is the conjugation of the verb être in the present (Présent), past complete (Passé composé), past incomplete (Imparfait), as well as the simple future tense (Futur simple).

Usually in sentences the verb être is not translated into Russian. For example, the expression “il est directeur” in Russian will sound like “he is a director,” and not “he is a director,” since the verb “to be” is combined with names of professions, descriptions of conditions, etc. in Russian, as a rule, it is omitted. Unlike the Russian language, in French there is a subject indicating the type of occupation, description, etc. always presupposes the presence of the verb être:
Nous sommes enfants - We are children.
Pierre, tu es très intelligent - Pierre, you are very smart.
La maison est grande - The house is big.

In some constructions in French, the verb être may either not be translated into Russian at all, or may be translated by other verbs that are suitable in meaning in this particular situation. For example:
ton stylo est sur la table - your pen is on the table OR your pen is on the table;
mon complet est dans l"armoire - my suit is hanging in the closet OR my suit is in the closet;
nous sommes en huitième - we are in eighth grade.

The verb être is used as an auxiliary when conjugating all reflexive verbs(se séparer, s"arrêter, etc.) and 15 verbs in complex tenses. These include the so-called “intransitive” verbs, denoting state or movement:
aller (to go), arriver (to arrive), descendre (to go down), devenir (to become),

entrer (to enter), monter (to rise), mourir (to die), naître (to be born), partir (to leave),

rentrer (to return), rester (to stay), revenir (to return), sortir (to leave),

tomber (to fall), venir (to come).

For example: je me suis arrêté - I stopped; je suis venu - I have come; elle est sortie - she came out.

A participle formed from a conjugated verb will agree in number and gender with the subject to which it refers. For example: il est venu, nous sommes venus, elles sont venues.

Due to the fact that some of the listed 15 verbs can have different meanings, such verbs can be conjugated with the auxiliary verb avoir:
Compare: il est monté - he rose; il a monté sa valise dans l’armoire - he lifted (put) his suitcase into the closet.
The auxiliary verb être is replaced by avoir also in the case of an object in the genitive case, i.e. when the conjugated verb becomes transitive:
il a monté l’escalier - he climbed the stairs.

The French verb “être” translated into Russian means “to be”. This verb is part of the third group of verbs, therefore it has special conjugation forms in all tenses. To do this, take the original root of the verb, or a verbal morpheme. To speak correctly, you need to remember these forms.

The verb “être” is used as a semantic verb when defining a profession, status, type of activity, as well as when describing a certain phenomenon or state of an object.

Usually, in sentences where the verb “être” carries a semantic load, it is not translated into Russian. For example:
. Je suis proffesseur. - I'am a teacher. (Not “I am a teacher”)
. Elle est très riche. - She is very rich.
. Le chat botté est mon héros aimé. - Puss in Boots is my favorite hero.

In French, there are a number of phrases in which the verb “être” can also be omitted during translation, or translated by another verb that is related in meaning to the main idea of ​​the sentence in which it is used. For example:
. L'auto est à côt é de la maison - A car near the house. The car is parked near the house.
. Les serviettes sont dans la commode. - Towels in the chest of drawers. Towels are in the chest of drawers.
. Il est jardinier. - He's a gardener. He works as a gardener.

In addition, the verb "être" is one of the auxiliary verbs in French. So, it will be an auxiliary verb when conjugating all reflexive (pronominal) verbs. The participle (participe passé), formed by conjugating a semantic verb, must be consistent in number and gender with the subject. So:
. Il s"est réveillé. - He woke up.
. Elle ne s’est pas lavée. - She didn’t wash her face.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that the first sentence uses a masculine participle, and the second – a feminine one. This is evidenced by the added “e” in the participle of the verb “se laver”.

Also, the verb “être” will be auxiliary when forming complex tenses with “intransitive” verbs denoting movement or state:
. naître - to be born
. mourir - to die
. tomber - to fall
. aller - to go, to go
. arriver - to come, to arrive
. partir - leave, leave
. venir - to come, to come
. survenir - appear, meet
. apparaître - to appear
. sortir - exit
. and others
For example:
. Pouchkine est né en 1799. - Pushkin was born in 1799.
. Le train est arrivé sur le quai. - The train arrived at the platform.

However, the verb être can be replaced by the verb avoir if in the sentence construction the verb is followed by a direct object (without a preposition). Then the verb becomes “transitive”:
J'ai sorti mon porte-monnaie. - I took out my wallet.

The verb être can also be used in stable phrases. In the third person singular, in combination with the pronoun il, it forms the untranslatable impersonal phrase il est, which is used mainly to denote time. For example:
. Quelle heure est-il? - What time is it now?
. Il est quatre heures. - It's four o'clock now.

The use of the verb "être" is very common in French, both independently and as an auxiliary when forming tenses, so be careful when using it. If you choose the wrong form, you can unwittingly distort your own thought.

In French, as in many European languages, there is a verb “to be, is”, which in the present tense, as a rule, is not translated into Russian.
If in Russian sentences like “The house is big”, “The woman is very beautiful”, “She is sick” do without a verb, then in French the so-called connective will definitely appear - the verb “etre”. It is this linking verb that we will talk about in this lesson.

The verb “etre” is conjugated in persons and numbers.

Personal pronouns

To correctly conjugate this verb, check out the table of personal pronouns in French. As in Russian, in French there are three persons (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and two numbers (singular and plural) of pronouns. There is no neuter gender in French - only masculine and feminine.

Please note that in French there is no single pronoun for masculine and feminine plurals.
Each plural gender has its own pronoun.

Conjugation of the verb "Etre" (listen)

So, now let’s conjugate the verb “etre”. This verb has six different forms - for each pronoun.

*nasal sounds are indicated by transcription signs given in lesson 4. The remaining transcription sounds are indicated by Russian sounds.

It is important to note that when pronouncing the phrase "vous etes" the so-called binding occurs: [vuzet]. Phrases "il est" And "elle est" are also pronounced together: [tyue] and [ile].

To form a negative in French, the phrase is used "ne...pas", wherein "ne" must come before the verb, and "pas"- after.

For example: tu n'es pas malade(You are not sick).

As you noticed, the letter “e” before another vowel is shortened and replaced by an apostrophe “’”.

To ask a question, you can use not one, but three ways!

• First, you need to swap the subject and predicate, in this case, the pronoun and the desired form of the verb “etre”. In this case, a dash will be written between these two words.

For example:
Es-tu malade?[this little guy] (Are you sick?)

Est-il malade?[ethyl malyad] (Is he sick?)

Notice that the letter "t" before the vowel becomes pronounced.

• The second method is the easiest. There is no need to swap anything, just add the intonation of the question to the sentence. Of course, this method is popular for colloquial speech.
• And finally, to ask a question in French you can use the popular phrase "Est-ce-que"[esko]. It is not translated into Russian, but allows you to preserve the direct word order of the French sentence.

For example:
Est-ce qu'il est malade?[eskile malyad] - Is he sick?

Est-ce que vous êtes malades?[esko vuzet malyad] - Are you sick?

Notice that the vowel “e” before the pronoun “il” is dropped again.

But where did the ending “s” in the word “malade” come from, you ask. This is another feature of the French language - coordination . In Russian we do the same thing, we say “I’m sick,” “he’s sick,” “we’re sick.” In French, the masculine gender does not receive any endings, the feminine gender is added with the ending “e”, and the plural with the ending “s”.
For example:
Il est intelligent [ile ɛ̃telizhɑ̃]. - He is smart.

Elle est intelligente [ele ɛ̃telizhɑ̃t]. - She's smart.Elles sont intelligentes [el sɔ̃ ɛ̃telizhɑ̃]. - They are smart. (about women)

Please note that the final unpronounceable consonant “t” in the feminine gender is pronounced due to the addition of the letter “e”.

Ready to consolidate what you've learned? Do some exercises!

Lesson assignments

Exercise 1. Use the correct form of the verb "etre".

1. Il... fatigué (tired).
2. Je... étudiante (student).
3. Ma chambre (my room) ... grande (large).
4. Ils... charmantes.
5. Est-ce que tu… médecin? (doctor).
6. Nous... sûrs (sure).
7. Elle... désolées (sad).
8. Il...marié (married).
9. …-nous en retard?
10. Elle... brune (brunette).

Exercise 2. Make up questions for the sentences using inversion or the phrase “Est-ce que”.

1. Tu es mariée (married).
2. Il est libre (free).
3. Vous etes prêts.
4. Elle est triste (sad).
5. Nous sommes malades.

Exercise 3. Complete the sentences by matching adjectives with pronouns.

1. Ills sont…. (content - satisfied).
2. Elle est... (fatigué).
3. Elles sont…. (fort).
4. Il est... (grand).
5. Ills sont... (médecin).

Answer 1.
1st
2.suis
3.est
4. sont
5.es
6. sommes
7. sont
8.est
9. sommes
10.est Answer 2.
1. Est-ce que tu es mariee? - Es-tu mariee?
2. Est-ce qu’il est libre? - Est-il libre?
3. Est-ce que vous etes prêts? — Êtes-vous prêts?
4. Est-ce que elle est triste? - Est-elle triste?
5. Est-ce que nous sommes malades? - Sommes-nous malades? Answer 3.
1. contents
2. fatiguee
3.fortes
4.grand
5. medecins