Salut chers amis !
This month, like every other month, has been filled with eye-opening explanations just to make French grammar as simple as it can be and I am glad that you all have been learning a great deal with us.
In the past few weeks, we've learnt how to conjugate "er" verbs in present tense as well as some other "er" verbs with peculiarities under which we've seen verbs that end with "ger" and "cer". We saw a little change that occurs in the first person plural form of their conjugations and I believe all that has been well understood.
Today, we will proceed to seeing verbs that end with "yer" such as: envoyer - to send, essuyer- to wipe, ennuyer - to annoy/irritate, octroyer - to award etc.
For verbs that fall under this category, the letter "y" before the "er" is replaced with letter "i" in the "je", "tu", "il/elle" and "ils/elles" forms but retains the "y" in the "nous" and "vous" forms. You remember your subject pronouns. Right? Cool! Let's observe carefully the conjugation below to have a better understanding.
Envoyer - to send
J'envoie
Tu envoies
Il/Elle envoie
Nous envoyons
Vous envoyez
Ils/Elles envoient
It is clearly seen in the above conjugation that only "nous" and "vous" retain the initial "y" in the infinitive form or the conjugated verb while the other persons change the "y" to "i". As beginners in French language, you must always remember this when dealing with the conjugation of verbs that end with "yer" in French. Well, the reason why the letter "y" is changed to "i" has not been ascertained. Just know that the "y" should be replaced with "i". However, there are still some verbs that end with "yer" where the letter "y" is allowed to be retained all through the conjugation or changed to "i" like in the example above. That means, for such verbs, you can use either of the two patterns and you will be correct.
Examples of verbs like this, that have dual conjugation, are : payer - to pay and
bégayer- to stammer.
Check the conjugation below.
Je paie /paye
Tu paies /payes
Il/Elle paie /paye
Nous payons
Vous payez
Ils/Elles paient / payent
We could conclude here that when a french verb end with "ayer" like the two verbs cited above, one can choose to retain the letter "y" all through the conjugation or change it to "i" in the persons indicated earlier on in the explanation above. Understood? Cool enough! Just in case you've got some questions for clarity sake, kindly drop them in the comment box and we shall do justice to that.
Till we meet again next time, keep learning.
Bonne journée !!!
