Season 2 – Lesson 23 – Coffee Break French

In Lesson 23 we take a further look at the imperfect tense, this time looking at the formation of -re and -ir verbs. We also consider some verbs with slightly different patterns and the only verb with an irregular stem in the imperfect tense: être. Please note that lesson 23 of Season 2 was originally known as lesson 63 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners.

Get the podcast

Access this lesson and all future lessons of Coffee Break French automatically by subscribing to the podcast. You can access the podcast on your computer, tablet or phone using the appropriate links below.

Join the conversation

Join the conversation with the Coffee French team on social media! We post regular language and cultural information on Facebook, and you can keep up with Coffee Break Languages on Instagram.

Go Premium...

The premium version of Coffee Break French Season 2 provides additional materials which will help you move forward more effectively with your French studies. These are available on the Coffee Break Academy.

Video lessons

Listen to each lesson and see the words and phrases covered in the lesson displayed on the screen of your computer, phone or tablet.

Bonus audio

Use our review lessons to practise the language covered in the main lesson, and to pick up some useful bonus vocabulary.

Lesson notes

Study the language of each lesson in greater detail and access additional information about French in our comprehensive lesson notes.

Available on the Coffee Break Academy

All our online courses are available only on the Coffee Break Academy where with a single login you’ll be able to access the premium elements of the course.

You can access everything online or, if you prefer, you can download the materials to your own device and take your learning with you wherever you go.

Would you like a free trial?

Not quite sure if you’re ready to sign up for the premium version of Coffee Break French? Pas de problème! We’d love to offer you a free trial. Just enter your details below and we’ll send you an email to confirm your level and get you set up with the first three lessons of the course absolutely free, with no obligation!

3 thoughts on “Season 2 – Lesson 23 – Coffee Break French”

  1. Mark

    You mentioned we’ve learnt present tense of re and ir verbs in lesson 43 or 42, but I can not find them anywhere in the previous lessons
    Is that I downloaded the original podcast and you’ve updated the content later?

    Reply
  2. Mark,
    it’s true. Until now there’s never been a lesson on present tense of -ir/re verbs. Amazing how far you can get without them, though.
    Other than that-I’m a big fan!

    Reply
  3. Actually, there was such a lesson. He never gave out a rule as such to form the perfect tense like he did with the -er ones, but there was even a list of verbs (lire, voir, savoir, boir and many others) to which he gave the perfect tense, but didn’t go through the full conjugation since the only thing that changes are the auxiliary verbs and would be unnecessary to go through être and avoir once again… I couldn’t for the life of me say what number these lessons are, but it was definitely covered in an episode and revised in the following one.

    Reply

Leave a Comment