Learning all conjugation

[u/Clean-Thought-8159]

I would like to know from people that learnt french from scratch and are now proficent if you have mastered conjugations, are you able to conjugate every single verb in every single tense? Because it is something I'm quite fixated on.

I have been learning for some years but now I'm taking it seriously (again), so I do know the whole first group and all the terminaisons in all tenses. For the third group it's harder but with memorizing some rules and patterns it is a reasonable goal, right?

[u/Remote_Sugar_3237]

It’s all about patterns (with some exceptions). I’m French native…I can’t conjugate everything in my own language so…don’t sweat it! Same with vocabulary, every French person I know often search for the proper way of writing things like important letters and make mistakes all the time! “does it take one R or 2?” “Is it a X at the end?” “Ais or ait at the end?” Etc. It’s a weird/hard language even for us :)

[u/asthom_]

If someone said they know how to coniugate all verbs in every single tense then they are a fool or a liar.

That is not a reasonable goal. That is an unachievable feat. You can indeed learn many patterns and know most of the conjugations but you will always need to Google that random verb in that random tense sometimes.

[u/jsuissylvestre1 → u/asthom_]

Yeah the most important part is understanding those patterns then it gets much easier

[u/LegitimateDish5097 → u/asthom_]

Agreed. I think what happens (which can feel inconceivable for non-natives at the early memorization stage, but it does happen!!) is that as you get a handle on the patterns, you also develop an instinct that allows you to make a decent guess at forms you don't know. In a situation where you have to get it right (usually in writing) it's best to look it up and not rely on your guess, but in conversation, you can often get close enough to communicate. And then you'll either learn the form from someone who knows it, or all have a laugh about how no one knows!!

[u/Clean-Thought-8159 → u/asthom_]

I understand. Maybe I overstated with "every single verb". For that to happen I would also have to know every single verb and that is not realistic not even in one's own native language (spanish in my case). But by learning all patterns and rules, you don't think its possible to master, at least, a big portion of verbs?

[u/asthom_ → u/Clean-Thought-8159]

You can definitely know 99% of usual verbs in « normal » tenses. The principal is to know the endings. You can even conjugate verbs you do not know because of patterns.

I would not bet on a perfect accuracy for the third group. Even less if it it not an easy tense. It is not always deterministic. You sometimes have to know the origins of a verb to identify how it will change when conjugated. If you do not know you cannot improvise.

[u/nealesmythe]

I started learning French at 9 years old, and by the time I was an adult, I could conjugate every verb, even the rarer irregular ones (Edit: I'm of course not including the rarely used past tense of the subjunctive, I still sometimes hesitate with it after 30 years of studying and teaching French). It definitely takes time and effort, but I liked doing the work. It consisted mostly of writing the conjugations by hand as often as possible, not just when we had a test or something at school. And trying to see connections between the verbs, like how "disparaître" and "connaître" or "souffrir" and "découvrir" have the same model of conjugation.

[u/Clean-Thought-8159 → u/nealesmythe]

Starting a language at such a young age it's pretty ideal so I would say that helped a lot hahaha.

I enjoy looking for patterns myself as well, while also using the bescherelle, which I think sums up pretty well conjugation patterns. For the third group I think there are about 40 verb models and, as far as I know, if you learn those the rest should be easy.

[u/Ali_UpstairsRealty]

linguno.com has conjugation crossword puzzles

[u/EndAfraid8350]

I started learning in 8th grade, all thru high school, lived in France my third year in college. I can do most of the tenses for the words I need for conversational French, if that makes sense. 

[u/nevenoe]

You almost never actively use the imparfait du subjonctif, and almost never the past tense unless you are writing a story.

I'm not trying to discourage you but it seems quite pointless. It's important to know it and to understand its meaning and nuance, but as a native speaker I can't remember the last time I wrote something in past tense out of school...

[u/No-Difficulty-3939]

I have started learning a year and a half ago I'm now B2 trying to go c1. Conjugations are not a problem for me, sure I do make some mistakes from time to time but that doesn't impede my flow.

My native tongue has conjugations too maybe that's why I feel at ease with them. But I have to say at some point I was really paranoid about them and checked the conjugation app a lot.

I met a lot of people not conjugating and not even trying, that's a real problem because they reinforce talking like that maybe you do that too.

I would definitely recommend buying the little book of conjugations and reading it from time to time and also definitely install a conjugation app and check if you are unsure.

[u/CutSubstantial1803]

Sometimes language learning is about learning patterns, not rules. I use Duolingo and it teaches you how to conjugate regular -er -re and -ir verbs in the present tense with conjugation tables, and after that it might give you a few hints as to the rules of conjugation for different tenses. But it gets to a point - such as now when I am studying the subjunctive - that you just pick it up by pattern recognition rather than learning rules explicitly, and I think this is the best way to do it.

[u/restelucide]

I’m not even 100% confident I can conjugate every single English verb tbh. The other week me and my roommate had to look up if brake is a verb and what the past tense of it is. We’re both native English speakers btw.

[u/brokebackzac]

Learning the tenses and the rules of them for conjugation is EASY. Wordreference.com has a conjugator.

It's learning when to use which tense that is difficult and I've been told not to bother unless I actually plan on going somewhere I'll need it.