{"id":21646,"date":"2015-02-09T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T05:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=21646"},"modified":"2017-10-23T14:15:49","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T12:15:49","slug":"irregular-and-stem-changing-verbs-in-the-subjunctive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/irregular-and-stem-changing-verbs-in-the-subjunctive\/","title":{"rendered":"Subjunctive: Irregular and Stem-Changing Verbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I mentioned last week, besides evaluating in which circumstances to use the French subjunctive, the most difficult part of this mood is learning how to conjugate irregular and stem-changing verbs into the subjunctive. Luckily, there are only about 10 verbs that are irregular<\/strong> and 10 verbs that are stem-changing<\/strong> in the subjunctive \u2013 although these verbs are very, very common and so you must know them in order to successfully navigate correct French grammar.<\/p>\n

You know already that irregular verbs are just verbs that do not follow the typical form, which, in this case, means that either the nous <\/em>and vous <\/em>forms are not identical to the imperfect forms or that the other subjunctive forms are not made by switching the \u2013ent<\/em> from the third person plural of the present tense and replacing it with either \u2013e<\/em>, –es<\/em>, –e<\/em>, or –ent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Stem-changing verbs are slightly more confusing, however, because the stem of the word changes based on the pronoun being used.\u00a0 This occurs in the present indicative tense as well as the subjunctive; for example, the present nous <\/em>and ils <\/em>forms of the verb venir<\/em> (to come) are nous ven<\/strong>ons<\/em> and ils vienn<\/strong>ent<\/em>.\u00a0 The bolded text is the stem of the word, which changes based on whether the pronoun nous <\/em>or the pronoun ils <\/em>is used.<\/p>\n

The verb venir<\/em> keeps the same two stems in the subjunctive form as well. The stem of the verb for nous <\/em>and vous<\/em> (ven<\/em><\/strong>-) is different from the stem for je, tu, il\/elle\/on, <\/em>and ils\/elles (vienn<\/strong>-).\u00a0 <\/em>Although these stems change, you add the regular subjunctive endings <\/strong>(-e, -es, -e, -ions-, -iez, <\/em>and \u2013ent) <\/em>to these stems. Thus, the all forms of the verb venir <\/em>in the subjunctive mood are as follows:<\/p>\n

que je vienn<\/em><\/strong>e<\/em><\/p>\n

que tu vienn<\/em><\/strong>es<\/em><\/p>\n

qu\u2019il\/elle\/on vienn<\/em><\/strong>e<\/em><\/p>\n

que nous ven<\/em><\/strong>ions<\/em><\/p>\n

que vous ven<\/em><\/strong>iez<\/em><\/p>\n

qu\u2019ils\/elles vienn<\/em><\/strong>ent<\/em><\/p>\n

Here is a list of other common stem changing verbs in the subjunctive:<\/p>\n

aller<\/em> (to go) \u2013 aill-<\/strong> and all-<\/strong><\/p>\n

boire <\/em>(to drink) \u2013 boiv- <\/strong>and buv-<\/strong><\/p>\n

croire<\/em> (to believe) \u2013 croi- <\/strong>and croy-<\/strong><\/p>\n

devoir<\/em> (to have to) \u2013 doiv<\/strong>– and dev<\/strong>–<\/p>\n

prendre<\/em> (to take) \u2013 prenn<\/strong>– and pren<\/strong>–<\/p>\n

recevoir<\/em> (to receive) \u2013 re\u00e7oiv<\/strong>– and recev<\/strong>–<\/p>\n

tenir<\/em> (to hold) \u2013 tienn<\/strong>– and ten<\/strong>–<\/p>\n

voir<\/em> (to see) \u2013 voi<\/strong>– and voy<\/strong>–<\/p>\n

vouloir<\/em> (to want) \u2013 veuill<\/strong>– and voul<\/strong>–<\/p>\n

**Remember to add the regular subjunctive endings <\/strong>(-e, -es, -e, -ions-, -iez, <\/em>and \u2013ent)<\/em> to these stem-changing verbs.<\/p>\n

On to the irregular verbs:<\/strong> With irregular verbs, the stems can look very different in the subjunctive form than in the infinitive, but they stay the same no matter what pronoun you use.\u00a0 For example, for the verb savoir <\/em>the root of the verb in the subjunctive is sach<\/em><\/strong>–<\/em>.\u00a0 You then add on the regular subjunctive<\/strong> endings<\/strong> to the verb savoir <\/em>(to know) so that it will become je sach<\/em><\/strong>e<\/em>, tu sach<\/em><\/strong>es<\/em>, il\/elle\/on sach<\/em><\/strong>e<\/em>, nous sach<\/em><\/strong>ions<\/em>, vous sach<\/em><\/strong>iez<\/em>, ils\/elles sach<\/em><\/strong>ent<\/em>. Other verbs with irregular, but constant, stems and regular subjunctive endings are faire <\/em>(to do\/make) (fass-<\/em><\/strong>) and pouvoir <\/em>(to be able) (puiss-<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

That leaves us with the verbs avoir\u00a0<\/em>(to have) and\u00a0\u00eatre <\/em>(to be), which are<\/strong> stem-changing and have irregular subjunctive endings<\/strong>, making them highly irregular.\u00a0 It\u2019s best just to memorize all of their forms in the subjunctive:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00eatre<\/strong><\/p>\n

que je sois<\/em><\/p>\n

que tu sois<\/em><\/p>\n

qu\u2019il\/elle\/on soit<\/em><\/p>\n

que nous soyons<\/em><\/p>\n

que vous soyez<\/em><\/p>\n

qu\u2019ils\/elles soient<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

avoir<\/strong><\/p>\n

que j\u2019aie<\/em><\/p>\n

que tu aies<\/em><\/p>\n

qu\u2019il\/elle\/on ait<\/em><\/p>\n

que nous ayons<\/em><\/p>\n

que vous ayez<\/em><\/p>\n

qu\u2019ils\/elles aient<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

As I mentioned last week, besides evaluating in which circumstances to use the French subjunctive, the most difficult part of this mood is learning how to conjugate irregular and stem-changing verbs into the subjunctive. Luckily, there are only about 10 verbs that are irregular and 10 verbs that are stem-changing in the subjunctive \u2013 although…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":21650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[348527,3234,348528],"class_list":["post-21646","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-french-subjunctive","tag-irregular-verbs","tag-stem-changing-verbs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28694,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21646\/revisions\/28694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}