The Future Simple tense of regular verbs was covered in a previous post here. That post explained how to find the future simple stem of a regular -er, -ir or -re verb, as well as the appropriate future simple endings.

This post, however, is a list of the most important verbs whose future simple stems do not follow the rules of regular future simple stems. These tend to be more frequently used verbs. So it is important to get to know their future simple stems. Not only so that you can form the future simple tense, but also so that you can form the Present Conditional Tense. That’s because the Present Conditional uses the future simple stem as its own stem.

Frequently used verbs: irregular future simple stems

VERB	MEANING	STEM	EXAMPLE
être	to be	ser-	je serai
avoir	to have	aur-	j’aurai
aller	to go	ir-	j’irai
faire	to do, to make	fer-	je ferai
venir	to come	viendr-	je viendrai
devoir	to have to, must	devr-	je devrai
vouloir	to want	voudr-	je voudrai
pouvoir	to be able, can	pourr-	je pourrai
savoir	to know (how)	saur-	je saurai
voir	to see	verr-	je verrai

Infrequently used verbs: irregular future simple stems

VERB	MEANING	STEM	EXAMPLE
acquérir	to acquire	acquerr	j’acquerrai
courir	to run	courr-	je courrai
cueillir	to gather	cueiller-	je cueillerai
décevoir	to deceive	to décevr-	je décevrai
envoyer	to send	enverr-	j’enverrai
falloir	to be necessary	faudr-	il faudra
pleuvoir	to rain	pleuvr-	il pleuvra
recevoir	to receive	recevr-	je recevrai
tenir	to hold, keep	tiendr-	je tiendrai
valoir	to be worth	vaudr-	il vaudra

Don’t miss out on new posts – subscribe now!