French conjugation practice: a typing drill for 9 common verbs

French conjugation practice means pulling the right verb form out of memory, and the drill above lets you do that for 9 common verbs in three tenses. Type the form, see the answer at once, and move on. Every answer is copied from the verb’s entry in Usito, the online dictionary of the Université de Sherbrooke. For what each tense is for, read French tenses, explained. For why verb forms can feel hard to English speakers, see Is French hard to learn. For the research behind recall practice, see How to learn French fast. For gender, a or à, and ce or se, try French grammar exercises.

How does this French conjugation practice drill work?

This French conjugation practice drill shows a subject, a blank, and the verb and tense in brackets, such as nous ___ (finir, présent). You type the missing form, here finissons [5], and press Check or Enter.

• Type the form, with or without the subject. “finissons” and “nous finissons” both count.
• Mind the accents. If only an accent is off, the drill says so and shows the form. The row of accented letters under the box types them for you on a phone.
• Pick a tense. The buttons at the top choose All, Présent, Imparfait or Futur simple.
• Ten per round. Each round draws 10 prompts at random. At the end you see your score and the forms you missed.
• Nothing is sent. The drill runs in your browser, and nothing you type leaves it.

The prompts use six persons: je, tu, il, nous, vous and ils. Usito prints the third person as “il elle”; the drill shows il. Usito prints j’ai, with j’ in place of je, so the prompt reads j’___ (avoir, présent), and the answer is ai [2].

Is this drill an official French verb conjugation quiz?

No: this is a practice drill, not a French verb conjugation test from any exam body, school or government. Its score is not a level and does not predict an exam result. Each round is a random draw, so two scores are not directly comparable. Use it to find the forms you do not know yet.

Which verbs does this French verb conjugation practice use?

This French verb conjugation practice uses nine verbs: être, avoir, aller, faire, finir, prendre, venir, pouvoir and parler. Usito’s conjugation guide says the verbs with the most stems are mostly very frequent ones, and it names aller, avoir, être, faire and pouvoir among them [10]. It calls finir the model for about 300 verbs [10]. Verbs in -er make up nearly 90% of French verbs, the guide says, and their endings are regular, with envoyer and renvoyer (in two tenses) and aller as the exceptions [10]. Parler is one of them [9].

The table shows the je form of each verb in the three tenses, copied from its Usito entry.

What does French verb tense practice cover here?

French verb tense practice in this drill covers three simple tenses of the indicative. The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) describes them this way:

• Présent. It talks about events at the moment of speaking, and also about general truths, habits and lasting states [11]. Example: Ce pommier en fleurs est superbe. (This apple tree in bloom is superb.) [11]
• Imparfait. It shows a past action in progress, without saying when it began or ended [12]. Example: Elle souriait. Elle était heureuse et ne pouvait contenir sa joie. (She was smiling. She was happy and could not contain her joy.) [12]
• Futur simple. It names actions or states to come, seen from the present [13]. Example: Nous irons vous rejoindre en voiture. (We will join you by car.) [13]

The endings repeat more than the stems do. Usito’s guide says aller, avoir, être, faire, pouvoir and vouloir share the imparfait endings -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient and the futur simple endings -rai, -ras, -ra, -rons, -rez, -ront [10]. What changes is the stem, as j’irai and je serai show [10]. The OQLF calls présent endings fairly regular (“plutôt régulières”) [11].

How do you practice conjugation in French?

To practice verb conjugation in French, produce each form from memory before you look, which is what the drill asks of you. Two studies point that way, each for its own participants:

• Recall beats rereading over time. In a 2006 study, students read prose passages, then either took recall tests or restudied [14]. On final tests 2 days and 1 week later, prior testing gave substantially greater retention, even though restudying raised students’ confidence [14].
• Keep recalling after the first right answer. In a 2008 study, students learned foreign language vocabulary words [15]. Once a word was recalled correctly, more studying had no effect on delayed recall, but more testing had a large positive effect [15].

Neither study used French verb forms [14][15]. Read them as evidence about memory, not a promise about your French.

Ways to use the drill, as general suggestions:

• Short rounds, often. A round of 10 fits in a short break. Come back on another day.
• Say the whole form aloud. Say “nous finissons”, not just the ending.
• Start from your misses. If the misses list is mostly one tense, pick that tense next round.
• Do not stop at one right answer. That is the 2008 finding, for vocabulary [15].

What French verb practice comes after this drill?

French verb practice after this drill can move on to the compound tenses, which reuse two of these verbs. Usito’s tables build the passé composé of finir with avoir, as in j’ai fini, and that of venir with être, as in je suis venu [5][7]. French tenses, explained covers the passé composé and the other tenses.

For any other verb, open its Usito entry. Each entry opened for this page carries a full conjugation table [1]-[9].

Common mistakes

• Dropping accents. Usito prints vous êtes and nous étions [1]. The drill counts a missing accent as a miss.
• Keeping je before a vowel. Usito prints j’ai, j’étais and j’irai [1][2][3].
• Giving faire an -ez ending. Usito prints vous faites [4], unlike vous parlez [9].
• Dropping the double n. Usito prints ils prennent and ils viennent [6][7].
• Building the futur simple from the infinitive every time. Usito prints j’irai, je serai and je ferai [1][3][4].
• Putting finiss- everywhere. Usito’s guide uses fini- before an ending that starts with a consonant, as in je finis and tu finiras [10].
• Reading a drill score as a level. It is practice, not an assessment.
• Trusting a copied conjugation table, including this one. Reference pages are updated. Compare each Usito or OQLF page’s date with the date at the top of this one.

See also: common French verbs and French pronouns.

See also: common irregular verbs.

See also: aller conjugation and French -ir verbs and vouloir, pouvoir and devoir.

See also: regular -re verbs.

Sources