Group 1:
– manger (typical)
– nettoyer (good to memorize as a spelling exception for the “y” before
the terminaison)
– appeler/acheter

Group 2:
– finir (this is usually the benchmark for checking if a verb belongs to group 2. Meaning that if a verb is conjugated like finir, then it is a group 2 verb. It’s the only one I actually have memorized and its terminaisons can be applied to every group 2 verb, so I would say it’s enough, but that’s just me.)

Group 3:
– aller
– attendre
– battre

I think those are pretty useful if you want to memorize just 3 verbs per group, but obviously there are more spelling differences and nuances depending on how the base form of the verb ends (for group 1 and 3).

Dans un Bescherelle (La Conjugaison pour tous, dictionnaire de 12 000 verbes, chez Hatier, un classique) on trouve un tableau récapitulatif au point 6 où l’on présente aimer (1^er groupe), finir (2^e groupe) et ouvrir (3^e groupe ; on présente concurremment et partiellement dormir (ind. prés., imp. prés., part. passé), mettre (ind. prés.), vouloir (ind. prés., passé simple, subj. imparfait, infinitif), tenir (passé simple, subj. imparfait, part. passé), croire (infinitif) et absoudre/clore/écrire/mourir/prendre (part. passé) afin d’illustrer certaines particularités de la relation radical/affixe selon les modes/temps).

Here’s a chart I made for my students that shows and explains some of the most common conjugations across three groups + an irregular verb. I’ll include a screenshot of the first part.

Here are a few reasons why I chose these verbs (marcher, finir, rendre).

• They’re completely regular – this chart is not meant to show the exceptions to the rules, just to be a quick reference for 90% of cases.

• They’re pretty common verbs for young learners. They need to be told to marcher and they always have to finir and rendre their homework 🙂

• I avoided repeating letters close to the ending. For example, parler is a good common verb for group 1, but I decided to avoid it because where the “r” falls is a good clue for some conjugations, like the futur simple. Similarly, choisir would be a bad choice for group 2, because students already have a hard enough time with the “iss” part without another “s” in there.

• I chose an “re” ending for group 3 because “ir” looks too much like the typical group 2 verb.

• I chose aller for the irregular example so it could double as the futur proche conjugation table. For that reason, avoir would have been useful too for the passé composé.