French verb acheter

The tables below show the conjugation of the French verb acheter in the various simple and compound tenses.

See below for notes on the conjugation of acheter

This verb is essentially a regular -er verb like arriver, donner etc, except that the vowel of the stem changes from a schwa (written e and often ellided) to è. The vowel changes occurs:

• Before non-syllabic endings in the present tense (i.e. except in the nous and vous forms);
• Throughout the future and conditional tenses.

(This vowel change is probably driven by the fact that the schwa does not occur in closed syllables in French. Unfortunately syllabification does not fully explain the future and conditional forms since, e.g. a-che-trai and ach'-trai would in terms of syllabification be well-defined.)

For some verbs ending in -eter and -eler, it is not universally agreed whether to adopt the e grave spelling as given here, or to double the l or t. For a full discussion of this issue, see my discussion of the spelling of -eter and -eler verbs.