Salut chers amis !
I believe we are used to that greeting already. Just in case you're joining the class for the first time, that simply means "Hello dear friends!".
Are you excited to learn something new? I do hope so.
Last week, we started learning how to conjugate "ER" verbs in the simple present tense. You would remember it was said that the two major parts of a French verb are the ending and the stem of the verb. We also saw from last week's lesson that all we have to do in order to conjugate an "er" verb in the simple present tense is to remove the "er" infinitive ending and add the simple present tense endings to what is left of the verb (the stem) after removing the "er".
Today, we will be looking into some "er" verbs with certain peculiarities.
First in this category of verbs with peculiarities are verbs that end in "ger" (that is, verbs that have a "g" placed before the "er" ending). Verbs like; manger (to eat), nager (to swim) and voyager (to travel) are going to be used as examples here.
Verbs of this nature still follow the normal rules and endings for the simple present tense conjugation. However, in the 1st person plural form of conjugation, that is, the "nous" form, there is a notably little difference from other "er" verbs.
Let's see the verb "manger" for example.
Je mange
Tu manges
Il /Elle mange
Nous mangeons <<== here is our focus.
Vous mangez
Ils /Elles mangent
Looking through the above verb conjugation, you would notice that the conjugation here is not too different from the normal conjugation rules seen last week except for the "nous" form placing an "e" before the "ons" ending. We could say that the extra "e" is introduced to maintain the same sound of "g" all through. The "g" in "manger" sounds like the "g" in the word "George". If the "nous" form of the verb were to be written following the normal rule, it would have been written as "nous mangons" which would make the "g" here sound as the "g" in the word "big". So, in order to retain the normal sound, an extra "e" is introduced and placed before the "ons" ending.
The same goes for the verbs : nager (nous nageons) and voyager (nous voyageons) as well as any other french verbs ending in "ger".
As we end the class here for today, i strongly believe this has been well understood. Do not hesitate to drop your questions for clarity sake in the comment box. Till we meet again, don't forget that french is a beautiful language. Keep learning and keep increasing in knowledge.
Bonne journée (Have a nice day)!
