Tip / reminder

Question

I know there are lots of exceptions in French! Is there one hiding behind the breaking of the symmetry of taking off two letters and adding one when forming participles (-er > -é, -ir > -i, but -dre > -du, rather than the simpler -re > -u) ?

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Andrew,
I do apologise for the delay in replying to your query.
We decided to display the verb ending -dre, and not to use -re, as in most cases, the rule of replacing the verb ending -re with -u would not work. This includes a lot of common verbs ending in -re (faire, disparaître, boire etc.).

Faire -> faiu fait 
boire -> boiu bu 
disparaître -> disparaitu disparu

I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !