Verb Conjugation Cheat Sheet
The verbs B2 speaking and writing actually call for, across every mood — indicative, conditional, subjunctive, imperative — with a quiz that only asks the cells each verb really needs
How to tell them apart: look at the infinitive ending. Almost every -er verb is Group 1; -ir verbs whose nous form adds -iss (finissons) are Group 2; everything else — -re / -oir verbs plus être, avoir, aller, faire and the like — is the irregular Group 3, learned one by one.
A few Group-1 verbs (préférer, acheter, appeler) tweak their spelling (je préfère); see the present-tense guide.
Memorise two, derive the rest
The present tense and the past participle are the skeleton; the other tenses mostly swap an ending onto them.
- Imparfait ← present-tense nous minus -ons: nous parlons → je parlais. Only être breaks it (j'étais).
- Subjunctive ← present-tense ils minus -ent: ils prennent → que je prenne.
- Every compound tense ← the same past participle with a different auxiliary: j'ai pris / j'avais pris / j'aurai pris.
But the future branch cannot be derived
The futur and the conditional share one stem and only swap endings (-ai / -ais). That stem is the infinitive, not the present — and a dozen of the commonest verbs each have their own: aller→ir-, avoir→aur-, être→ser-, faire→fer-, pouvoir→pourr-, savoir→saur-, vouloir→voudr-, venir→viendr-, voir→verr-, devoir→devr-. Deriving from the present gives je venirai (correct: je viendrai).