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A1 · Verb Tenses · Published July 27, 2026

Irregular Present Tense Verbs

French irregular verbs in the present tense are less chaotic than they look: almost all of them follow one architecture — one stem for je/tu/il, a second for nous/vous, a third for ils/elles, with steady endings on top. Learn eight verbs — aller, faire, venir, prendre, pouvoir, vouloir, devoir, savoir — and you unlock their entire families plus the constructions built on them.

Regular conjugation lives on the present tense page, and the two heavyweight irregulars have their own guide: être and avoir. This page covers the rest of the A1 essentials, organized by pattern rather than verb by verb.

In short

Most irregular verbs run on three stems: je/tu/il (viens), nous/vous (venons), ils/elles (viennent).
The endings stay steady: -s, -s, -t in the singular (pouvoir and vouloir write -x, -x; prendre’s d stands in for the -t: il prend), then -ons, -ez, -ent — with font and vont ending in -ont.
Aller is the only true wildcard: je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont.

je / tu / il singular formnous / vous formils / elles form· hover a highlighted word for its label

One architecture: three stems and a boot

Before memorizing anything, see the shape. Down the left side of a conjugation table, je/tu/il share one short stem and ils/elles uses a stronger version of it — together they draw a "boot" around the outside. Nous and vous sit inside the boot and step back to a stem that looks like the infinitive.

Verb	je	il / elle	nous	ils / elles
aller	je vais	il va	nous allons	ils vont
faire	je fais	il fait	nous faisons	ils font
venir	je viens	il vient	nous venons	ils viennent
prendre	je prends	il prend	nous prenons	ils prennent
pouvoir	je peux	il peut	nous pouvons	ils peuvent
vouloir	je veux	il veut	nous voulons	ils veulent
devoir	je dois	il doit	nous devons	ils doivent
savoir	je sais	il sait	nous savons	ils savent

Reading the table

Tu copies the je form: tu fais, tu viens, tu peux — the lone exception is tu vas.
Vous is the nous stem plus -ez: vous venez, vous pouvez — the lone exception is vous faites.
Apart from aller, the three singular forms of each verb sound identical; only the spelling changes.
The ils/elles stem is the one to double-check: viennent, prennent, peuvent, veulent, doivent.
Bonus payoff: these eight verbs also hand you their passé composé participles — allé, fait, venu, pris, pu, voulu, dû, su.

Aller: the wildcard

Aller is the one verb that refuses the architecture. Its singular and ils/elles forms descend from a different Latin verb entirely, so je vais and ils vont share nothing with the infinitive — only nous allons and vous allez remember the all- stem.

je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont

Master these six forms and the futur proche comes free: vais/vas/va plus an infinitive puts any French verb in the future.

Le samedi, nous allons au marché ensemble.

— Nous and vous keep the all- stem, so allons looks regular even though the rest of aller is not.

Faire: watch the plural

The singular of faire behaves: fais, fais, fait. The plural hides three surprises. Nous faisons is spelled with ai but pronounced like the e of "le" — fuh-ZON. Vous faites drops the usual -ez; only être (vous êtes) and dire (vous dites) — plus compounds like vous refaites — share that privilege. And ils font joins the tiny present-tense -ont club: sont, ont, vont, font.

Elles font la cuisine ensemble le dimanche.

— font is one of only four present-tense forms ending in -ont.

The venir family: the classic boot

Venir is the cleanest boot in French. Inside the singular, one nasal stem: je viens, tu viens, il vient. Nous venons and vous venez step out to plain ven-. Then ils viennent doubles the n and the vowel opens up. Learn it once and devenir, revenir, tenir, obtenir, appartenir all come free — and the same six forms drive venir de + infinitive, the "just did something" construction.

Mes cousins viennent dîner ce soir.

— Inside the ils/elles stem the n doubles: viennent.

The prendre family: drop the d in the plural

In the singular, prendre keeps the d of the infinitive, and that d stands in for the usual -t: je prends, tu prends, il prend. The plural drops it: nous prenons, vous prenez, and ils prennent doubles the n. That stem change is what makes prendre irregular — regular -re verbs like vendre keep one stem throughout. Apprendre, comprendre, surprendre conjugate identically.

Je prends le métro tous les matins.

— The singular keeps the d of the infinitive: prends, with silent final letters.

Vous comprenez la question ?

— Comprendre copies prendre exactly: comprenez uses the plain pren- stem.

The partir family: lose a consonant in the singular

The partir / sortir / dormir / servir family works the same trick in reverse: the singular drops the stem’s final consonant and keeps the regular endings, and the plural restores it. Learn one line and you have them all.

je pars, tu sors, il dort — nous partons, vous sortez, ils dorment

Pouvoir and vouloir (plus the rarer valoir) are the only verbs whose je and tu forms end in -x instead of -s: je peux, tu veux — the il/elle form takes -t as usual (peut, veut). Both are perfect three-stem verbs: peu- / pouv- / peuv- and veu- / voul- / veul-. Devoir follows the same shape with doi- / dev- / doiv-, and savoir is gentler still, with sai- in the singular and sav- everywhere else: savons, savez, savent.

The payoff is modality: each of these plus a bare infinitive expresses can, want, must, or know how to — a huge share of everyday conversation.

Tu veux venir avec nous ce soir ?

— With je and tu, vouloir and pouvoir end in -x: veux.

Nous devons partir avant midi.

— The nous form returns to the infinitive stem dev-: devons.

Elles savent déjà la réponse.

— In the plural, savoir sticks to one stem: savent matches savons and savez.

Common mistakes

✗Ils allont au cinéma ce soir.

✓Ils vont au cinéma ce soir.

Aller does not build its ils/elles form from the infinitive. Vont belongs to the four-member present-tense -ont club: sont, ont, vont, font.

✗Je peus venir demain matin.

✓Je peux venir demain matin.

Pouvoir and vouloir write -x, not -s, in the je and tu forms: je peux, tu peux, je veux, tu veux.

✗Vous faisez trop de bruit.

✓Vous faites trop de bruit.

Faire is one of only three verb families whose vous form does not end in -ez: vous êtes, vous dites, vous faites (and compounds like vous refaites).

Check yourself

1 / 4Ils ___ leurs devoirs après le dîner. (faire)

2 / 4Nous ___ chez nos grands-parents dimanche. (aller)

3 / 4Elles ___ le bus de sept heures. (prendre)

4 / 4Tu ___ m’aider ce soir ? (pouvoir)

Frequently asked questions

Which irregular French verbs should I learn first?

Start with être and avoir, then these eight: aller, faire, venir, prendre, pouvoir, vouloir, devoir, savoir. Together they cover a huge share of everyday speech, and venir and prendre each unlock a whole family of verbs that conjugate the same way.

Why is it "ils vont" and not "ils allont"?

Aller blends forms from different Latin verbs, so its singular and ils/elles forms ignore the infinitive. Vont belongs to a closed club of four: sont, ont, vont, font are the only present-tense forms ending in -ont.

Do apprendre and comprendre conjugate like prendre?

Yes — every verb built on prendre conjugates identically: je comprends, nous apprenons, ils surprennent. The same holds for the venir family: devenir, revenir, tenir, and obtenir all copy viens, venons, viennent.

How do you pronounce "nous faisons"?

The ai is irregular: it sounds like the e of "le", so faisons is pronounced roughly "fuh-ZON", not "fay-zon". The same sound carries into the imparfait stem, as in je faisais.

Memory tip

Read every table as a boot: je/tu/il share one sound, nous/vous step back to the infinitive stem, and ils/elles usually takes a strong stem (viennent, prennent, peuvent). Learn three stems per verb, not six separate forms.

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