My name is ! 

It’s time to build our first sentences, exciting right?

After greetings, introducing yourself is usually the first thing you’ll do when speaking a new language.
So let’s break down how we can start by saying our name.

To express this, we need to use the verb “s’appeler”, which means “to be called”.

Before learning our first conjugation table, let’s see how it works.

How French conjugation works

In French, each verb has a conjugation table that shows how to change the verb depending on the subject (I, you, he…) and the tense (present, past, future…).

Most of the time, the verb keeps a stable stem, and only the ending changes.
This transformation is influenced by two factors:

• the subject pronoun

• the tense

You might be wondering: “Do I really need to learn the conjugation of every verb? That’s endless!”
Short answer: Yes and no.

We’ll see later that French verbs belong to groups (1st, 2nd, 3rd group), and verbs within the same group follow the same pattern.

So, since “s’appeler” is a regular first-group verb (don’t worry about verb groups yet!), you can anticipate how it changes — just like the verb “manger” (to eat).

For example:

• Je m’appelle… → I’m called…

• Je mange… → I eat…

Conjugation table : S’appeler (Présent Indicatif)

💡 Tip: If you’re observant, you may have noticed that the verb s’appeler sometimes has one L and sometimes two.

This is simply a spelling irregularity of this particular verb — it’s not a rule you need to apply elsewhere.

And yes… French loves irregularities! 😊

Je, Tu, Il, Elle, …

Just like English has “I”, “You”, “He”, “She”, French also has its own subject pronouns.
The main difference is that in English, verbs don’t change much, while in French, the verb ending changes depending on the subject.

Examples:

• Je mange → I eat

• Tu manges → You eat

• Elle mange → She eats

• Nous mangeons → We eat

👉 We’ll talk more about subject pronouns in the next lesson!

Creating the sentence

Now that we’ve clarified things a bit, let’s make our first sentences!

To say “My name is Marc”, you say:

→ Je m’appelle Marc

Which literally means “I call myself Marc.”

If you want to say that someone else is called Marc, you change the subject:

→ Tu t’appelles Marc

💡 Tip : You might be wondering what is this little (j’ or t’) before the verbe appeler, it’s a called a reflexive pronoun and some verbs are formed with one like “s’appeler”.

If we use “appeler” instead of “s’appeler” it become “to call” instead of “to be called” so think of them as “myself”, “yourself” etc.. Don’t worry, we’ll learn more about reflexive verbs later.

Examples 

• Je m’appelle Tom. → My name is Tom.

• Tu t’appelles Marc. → Your name is Marc.

• Elle s’appelle Lucie. → Her name is Lucie.

• Nous nous appelons Paul et Anna. → Our names are Paul and Anna.

• Vous vous appelez Marie et Thomas. → Your names are Marie and Thomas.

• Ils s’appellent les Parisiens. → They are called “the Parisians.”