Tenir, Venir, Courir and Other Irregular -IR Verbs
Some -IR verbs don’t belong to any of the patterns covered so far. Unlike regular -IR verbs and the partir / dormir family, the verbs on this page don’t share one pattern with each other. Each is irregular in its own particular way, so each is presented on its own terms.
Tenir (to hold) and venir (to come) share the same irregular pattern, and it's one of the more distinctive ones in French: the stem changes shape three times across the six forms.
Ils viennent díner chez nous à Noël.
Nous venons souvent dans ce café.
Je tiens ma fille par la main.
These three verbs are each irregular in a different way, with no shared logic between them or with tenir/venir above. Rather than force them into a pattern they don't share, here they are simply as a quick reference.
| Courir (to run) | |
|---|---|
| je | cours |
| tu | cours |
| il / elle | court |
| nous | courons |
| vous | courez |
| ils / elles | courent |
Courir keeps a single stem, cour-, throughout. Its only irregularity is that it takes the -s, -s, -t endings in the singular rather than -is, -is, -it, the same singular endings seen with partir and dormir.
| Mourir (to die) | |
|---|---|
| je | meurs |
| tu | meurs |
| il / elle | meurt |
| nous | mourons |
| vous | mourez |
| ils / elles | meurent |
Mourir alternates between two stems: meur- for je, tu, il/elle and ils/elles, and mour- for nous and vous. The vowel changes, not a consonant, which is different from the partir family.
| Fuir (to flee) | |
|---|---|
| je | fuis |
| tu | fuis |
| il / elle | fuit |
| nous | fuyons |
| vous | fuyez |
| ils / elles | fuient |
Fuir switches between fui- in the singular and fuy- in nous and vous, a spelling change that keeps two vowels from colliding. The ils/elles form returns to fui- plus -ent.