Dear parents,
We are learning a different tense of verbs to speak and write about what has
happened in the past. In order to help the students better understand, I am
sending you this memo to help them study at home.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------When talking about something that happened in the past we use the passé
composé (the past tense of verbs). In French, to conjugate a verb in the past
tense, we use one of two helping verbs: être and avoir followed by our verb in
the past tense (called the past participle).
When we are using the helping verb être, the endings of our past participle verb
change according to the gender and number of our pronoun. When the pronoun
is feminine, we simply add an e to the end; when the pronoun is plural we add an
s; finally, if the pronoun is feminine and plural, we add es.
The helping verb être is conjugated:
je suis (I am)
tu es (you are)
il est (he is)
elle est (she is)
nous sommes (we are)
vous êtes (you –plural are)
ils sont (they –masculin are)
elles sont (they- feminin are)
The past participles are conjugated:
Devenir = devenu
Revenir = revenue
Monter = monté
Rester = resté
Sortir = sorti
Venir = venu
Aller = allé
Naître = né
Descendre = descendu
Entrer = entré
Rentrer = renté
Tomber = tombé
Retourner = retourné
Arriver = arrivé
Mourir = mort
Partir = parti
Passer = passé
Here are some examples of verbs conjugated in the past participle:
Je suis né
Tu es passé
Il est mort
Elle est arrivée
Nous sommes retournés
Vous êtes descendus
Ils sont allés
Elles sont devenues