Grammar School

Regular -re verbs

Conjugate any regular -re verb (vendre, attendre, entendre, perdre, répondre...) correctly in the present tense.

What this is

There are three regular verb families in French, not one. You already know -er (parler, manger, aimer) and both halves of -ir — the -iss- family (finir) and the bare-stem family (dormir, partir). This is the third and last: -re verbs like vendre (to sell), attendre (to wait for), perdre (to lose), entendre (to hear), répondre (to answer), and descendre (to go down / get off).

The good news is that -re is the simplest of the three to conjugate. The bad news is that its simplicity hides a small trap: the 3rd person singular has no ending whatsoever, which looks like a mistake the first few times you write it.

The rule

Drop -re from the infinitive to get the stem, then add these six endings:

Person Ending vendre (to sell)
je -s je vends
tu -s tu vends
il / elle / on (nothing) il vend
nous -ons nous vendons
vous -ez vous vendez
ils / elles -ent ils vendent

Every other regular -re verb follows the identical pattern on its own stem: attendre → j’attends, tu attends, il attend, nous attendons, vous attendez, ils attendent. Same for entendre (j’entends…), perdre (je perds…), répondre (je réponds…), and descendre (je descends…).

Here’s the full family lined up against the other two you already know, so the shape of each is easy to keep separate:

Person -er (parler) -ir, -iss- (finir) -ir, bare stem (dormir) -re (vendre)
je parl-e fin-is dor-s vend-s
tu parl-es fin-is dor-s vend-s
il/elle/on parl-e fin-it dor-t vend-(nothing)
nous parl-ons fin-issons dorm-ons vend-ons
vous parl-ez fin-issez dorm-ez vend-ez
ils/elles parl-ent fin-issent dorm-ent vend-ent

The nous/vous/ils endings (-ons, -ez, -ent) are shared by all four columns — that part never changes across the whole language. What differs is only the singular, and now you’ve seen every version of it.

Why it works this way

French present-tense endings evolved from Latin verb endings that were already being worn down by pronunciation over centuries. -re verbs lost their singular endings almost entirely in speech long before spelling caught up — “vend” was already pronounced as one closed syllable, with no audible ending, well before anyone wrote it that way. The spelling didn’t invent the silence; it just stopped pretending an ending was there. That’s also why je vends and tu vends are spelled with an -s that isn’t a “real” verb ending here so much as leftover orthographic symmetry with the -er/-ir columns.

Edge cases

Il vend takes no ending at all

This is the one genuinely new thing in this family. Every other present-tense form you’ve learned so far — -er, both -ir patterns, être, avoir — has something after the stem in the 3rd person singular: -e, -it, or -t. -re verbs have nothing. Il vend. Elle attend. On perd. Ça répond. Writing “il vends” or “il vende” is the single most common mistake here, because every instinct built by the other families expects a letter that this one doesn’t have.

Attendre takes its object directly — no preposition

English says “wait for someone.” French never inserts anything between attendre and what you’re waiting for: J’attends mon frère is “I’m waiting for my brother,” not “I wait my brother,” but there is no French word doing the job of “for” in that sentence at all. Reaching for pour or à here is a direct translation error, not a style choice — J’attends pour mon frère is simply wrong.

Répondre à keeps its preposition — attendre does not

This is the trap that follows directly from the last one, because the two verbs look like they should behave the same way and don’t. Répondre needs à before whatever you’re responding to: Tu ne réponds jamais à mes questions keeps à in front of mes questions, and dropping it there is exactly as wrong as adding one after attendre. There is no shortcut rule that predicts which -re verbs take a preposition and which don’t — attendre, chercher, and écouter (all already familiar) take their object bare; répondre does not. Each verb has to be learned on its own terms here, the same way you’d learn which English verbs need “to” and which don’t.

What English speakers get wrong here

The zero ending is the big one. Because -e, -it, and -t have all shown up as legitimate 3rd-person-singular endings in the families taught so far, learners often invent one for -re verbs too, most often adding a silent -e out of habit (il vende) or keeping the infinitive’s -re by accident (il vendre). Neither exists. If you’re not sure, the safest test is this: take the stem, and if there’s nothing left to add, there’s nothing left to add — don’t invent a placeholder ending just because every other family had one.

The second mistake is the mirror image of the attendre/répondre trap above: bringing English’s preposition habits into French wholesale, either adding “for” after attendre or dropping “to/at” before répondre’s object. Because both errors move in the same direction — matching English’s structure instead of checking the individual French verb — the fix is the same for both: don’t translate the preposition, translate the verb, and then check separately whether that specific verb needs one in French at all.

Examples

30 examples across 13 angles. 1 already have audio; the rest synthesize on first play.

vendre 1s

Je vends ma vieille voiture ; elle est trop petite.
I sell my old car ; it is too small.
I'm selling my old car; it's too small.
Je vends ma guitare et mon vieux vélo.
I sell my guitar and my old bike.
I'm selling my guitar and my old bike.

vendre 3s zero ending

Ce magasin vend des livres anciens et des vieux vélos.
This store sells some books old(literal) and some old bikes.
This store sells old books and old bikes.
vend has no ending at all — the whole point of this concept.
Le magasin de Marie ne vend pas de vin.
The store of Marie not sells not of wine.
Marie's store doesn't sell wine.
un/du/des collapses to de under ne...pas — a callback to negation-ne-pas-review.

attendre direct object

J'attends mon frère à la gare.
I wait my brother at the station.
I'm waiting for my brother at the station.
attendre takes its object directly — no preposition, unlike English "wait FOR".
Nous attendons nos amis à la maison.
We wait our friends at the house.
We're waiting for our friends at home.
Le professeur attend ses étudiants.
The teacher waits his students.
The teacher is waiting for his students.

repondre a preposition

Tu ne réponds jamais à mes questions.
You not answer never to my questions.
You never answer my questions.
répondre à keeps its preposition, where attendre drops one entirely.
L'avocat répond à ses clients avec patience.
The lawyer answers to his clients with patience.
The lawyer answers his clients patiently.
Ses enfants ne répondent jamais à ses lettres.
His children not answer never to his letters.
His children never answer his letters.

perdre basic

Mon père perd toujours ses clés.
My father loses always his keys.
My dad always loses his keys.
Nous perdons patience avec ce vieux professeur.
We lose patience with this old teacher.
We're losing patience with this old teacher.
perdre patience — an idiom, not a word-for-word translation of "to lose patience."

entendre basic

Nous entendons le professeur parler.
We hear the teacher speak.
We can hear the teacher talking.
J'entends mon voisin chanter.
I hear my neighbor sing.
I can hear my neighbor singing.

re verb 1p

Nous vendons notre vieille maison.
We sell our old house.
We're selling our old house.
Nous attendons nos amis, et nous perdons souvent patience.
We wait our friends, and we lose often patience.
We wait for our friends, and we often lose patience.

re verb 2p

Vous attendez vos amis avec patience.
You wait your friends with patience.
You're waiting patiently for your friends.
Vous ne répondez pas à mes questions, et vous perdez mon temps.
You not answer not to my questions, and you lose my time.
You don't answer my questions, and you're wasting my time.

re verb 3p

Ses collègues ne répondent jamais.
His colleagues not answer never.
His colleagues never answer.
Mes voisins vendent leur maison et perdent de l'argent.
My neighbors sell their house and lose some money.
My neighbors are selling their house and losing money.

negation with re verb

Le client n'attend pas son ami.
The customer not waits not his friend.
The customer isn't waiting for his friend.
Mon frère ne vend jamais ses vieux livres.
My brother not sells never his old books.
My brother never sells his old books.
Personne ne répond à ma question.
Nobody not answers to my question.
Nobody answers my question.
personne as the subject — the ne still appears, but there is no pas.

question with re verb

Qui vend la voiture rouge ?
Who sells the car red?
Who's selling the red car?
Répondez-vous à mes lettres ?
Answer you to my letters?
Do you answer my letters?
vous already ends in a pronounced consonant sound, so no euphonic -t- is needed here.
Pourquoi perds-tu toujours tes clés ?
Why lose-you always your keys?
Why do you always lose your keys?

possessive plus re verb

Tu perds toujours tes clés, mais jamais ton argent.
You lose always your keys, but never your money.
You always lose your keys, but never your money.
Notre professeur répond à nos questions avec patience.
Our teacher answers to our questions with patience.
Our teacher answers our questions patiently.

three verb family contrast recap

Nous descendons du train à la gare.
We go-down of-the train at the station.
We're getting off the train at the station.
descendre follows the exact same pattern as vendre, attendre, perdre, and répondre — same six endings, same zero ending in the 3rd person singular (il descend) — closing out all three regular families with one shared shape.
Le bus n'attend jamais personne.
The bus not waits never nobody.
The bus never waits for anyone.
Like every regular verb family taught so far — -er, both -ir patterns, and now -re — the same six endings hold regardless of which specific verb you plug in.

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