Révision du Passé Composé :
The Passe Compose is a two-part verb tense used to describe past action that takes
place as an isolated/one-time event.
It includes two parts:
1) An auxiliary/helping verb (‘avoir’ or ‘etre’) and 2) a past participle.
Auxiliaries/ Helping Verbs
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Most verbs use ‘avoir’ for an auxiliary in the passé compose.
Review of ‘Avoir’ in the present tense
Avoir:
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J’ai
Tu as
Il/Elle a
Some other verbs (Intransitive Verbs and Reflexive Verbs) take ‘etre’ as an
auxiliary.
o Intransitive Verbs are those ones that express ‘coming’ and ‘going’.
These must be memorized. You could use the ‘Maison d’Etre’ sketch to
help, or the acronym DR.MRS.VANDERTRAMPP.
o Reflexive verbs are those that use a reflexive pronoun (me, te, se,
nous, vous, se) and express an action that is applied (reflected back
onto) the subject of the sentence.
 Example: Elle s’est lavée.
Review of ‘Etre’ in the present tense:
Etre:

Nous avons
Vous avez
Ils/Elles ont
Je suis
Tu es
Il/Elle est
Nous sommes
Vous êtes
Ils/Elles sont
For all verbs that take ‘etre’ as a helping verb, the past participle must agree
in gender and number with the subject/reflexive pronoun (add an –e for
feminine, an –s for plural and an –es for feminine plural).
o Examples:
 Les filles sont allées à la bibliothèque.
 Cendrillon et le prince se sont habillés pour le bal.
This brings us to our next point (turn over):
Past Participles:
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In most cases, past participles are formed by removing the ending of an
infinitive and replacing it with a particular ending. These follow a predictable
pattern for most –ER, -IR, and –RE verbs.
That pattern is as follows:
o –ER verbs: Remove the –er at the end of the infinitive and replace it
with –é.
 Example : ‘Parler’ becomes ‘parlé’.
o -IR verbs: Remove the –ir at the end of the infinitive and replace it
with –i.
 Example: ‘Finir’ becomes ‘fini’
o –RE verbs: Remove the –re at the end of the infinitive and replace it
with –u.
 Example: ‘attendre’ becomes ‘attendu’
This pattern is very predictable. However, there are some notable exceptions.
You must memorize these. Please see the list on pages R43 for those irregular
past participles that are conjugated with ‘avoir’.
The irregulars that are conjugated with ‘etre’ include:
venir – venu
devenir – devenu
revenir – revenu
mourir – mort
naitre – né
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