Twelve vital French irregular verbs

Fortunately or unfortunately, the most common verbs in French (as in English!) are also the most irregular ones, the ones we have to use all to time. This page and linked pages provide essential details of the main groups of French irregular verbs, and details about the most important irregular verbs that do not fall into any group, but have their own individual conjugation pattern.
   Yet in spite of the large number (several hundreds) of irregular verbs in French, and their variety, most follow similar basic rules of conjugation. The "irregular" forms are mostly in the present tense and the perfect or passé composé tenses. Really "odd" forms, such as the past participle of vivre, which is vécu, are few and far between. In addition, most of them are quite common, so learners (including French students) become quickly familiar with them.

1. The five fundamental irregular verbs

These auxiliary and modal verbs are dealt with individually or on other pages.

2. Seven more very common irregular verbs

Most of the other very common verbs in French are also irregular. Each one has to be learned individually ! However the consolation is that generally speaking it is only the present tense of these verbs that is highly irregular. Other tenses are conjugated regularly on the basis of the form found in the first person singular. Thus for each verb, you will find the full present tense, plus the first person singular of other tenses. Other tense forms are derived normally from the tenses indicated