Direction of accents

Question

Looking at “Bien sûr, je préfèrerais que les animaux puissent vivre en liberté” I see that the “future stem” (not sure if this is the correct term) is “préfèrer…”, but in WordReference dictionary it is “préférer…”. Are both acceptable?

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Brian,
Maarten is correct that both spellings are acceptable.
Here are 2 extra links about the two conjugations of verbs similar to "préférer" in Le Futur Simple and in Le Conditionnel Présent:
Conjugate -éXer, -eXer, -eter, -eler verbs in the future tense in French (Le Futur Simple)
Conjugate most verbs in Le Conditionnel Présent (conditional mood)
I hope this is helpful. 
Bonne journée !

Answer

Both are acceptable - the version used here is from the rectifications distributed initially in 1991. Do you know the site Bescherelle - comprehensive list of verb conjugations in both traditional and rectified form ? https://bescherelle.com/conjugueur.php?term=Preferer

Answer

Thanks Maarten, no, I wasn’t aware of that nor of Larousse, which I’ve noticed you reference before. They look like very authoritative resources, and I’ve saved the links. The only downsized being that the seem a little, well, intimidating? :) I think I’ll still primarily use word reference, Google translate, and Deepl for speed, but it’s great to be aware of these deeper resources.  Thanks!

Answer

Brian - neither is really intimidating. Bescherelle has other material but I mostly use it for the conjugation table and it is rare indeed to come across a verb not listed. Larousse comes as a bilingual form or straight French dictionary. The latter has more vocabulary overall, but the bilingual form covers a lot. However, advice from other French teaching sites and many 'polyglots' is to start using a fully French dictionary when you have pretty good comprehension - understanding around 70-80% of what you hear or read. Both available in free forms online !