Most French verbs end in -er and behave like clockwork. Take parler (to speak): je parle, tu parles, il parle — three spellings, one sound. Add jouer (to play) and regarder (to watch) and you can say what you and your people actually do all day.
| French | English | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| parler | to speak | pahr-LAY |
| je parleje parle français ! | I speak | zhuh PAHRL |
| tu parlesthe -s is silent — same sound as je parle | you speak | tew PAHRL |
| elle parle | she speaks | ehl PAHRL |
| jouerje joue (zhuh ZHOO) | to play | zhoo-AY |
| regarderil regarde (eel ruh-GAHRD) | to watch, to look at | ruh-gahr-DAY |
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
je parle, tu parles, il parle all sound identical: PAHRL. The endings -e, -es, -e are for the page, not the ear — which is why French spelling practice belongs on paper, in a workbook, under your hand.
Every regular -er verb repeats this shape. Learn the pattern once with these three and hundreds of future verbs come pre-learned; the full six-person paradigm arrives in Module 2.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The French Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.
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