The perfect tense
•The perfect tense is used to talk about
events that have happened in the past.
•There are five different groups of verbs
that you have to master:
•regular –er verbs
•irregular verbs
•regular –ir verbs
•‘MRS VAN DER
TRAMP’ verbs
•regular –re verbs
We’re going to start by concentrating
on the regular verbs.
When you look a verb up in the
dictionary you will see that it always
ends in:
-er
-ir
-re
Most verbs are regular – this means
that they behave well and follow the
rules!
Firstly, when forming the perfect tense,
you need to use the correct part of the
verb ‘avoir’:
j’ai (I)
nous avons (we)
tu as (you)
vous avez (you)
il/elle/on a (he/she/we) ils/elles ont (they)
Remember: Sometimes you will use the
person’s name rather than he/she/we etc.
YOU MUST LEARN THIS
Secondly, you need to add the correct
verb, but you will need to change the
ending:
-er verbs:
regarder  regardé
-ir verbs:
finir  fini
-re verbs:
attendre  attendu
Let’s look at some examples:
to play = jouer
•I played needs to use j’ai
•-er verbs become é
•Therefore, I played = j’ai joué
•he played needs to use il a
•-er verbs become é
•Therefore, he played = il a joué
to finish = finir
to wait = attendre
•we finished needs to use nous avons
•-ir verbs become i
•Therefore, we finished = nous avons fini
•she waited needs to use elle a
•-re verbs become u
•Therefore, she waited = elle a attendu
However, as always, there are some ‘naughty’
verbs that have an irregular ending! Here are
some of the most common:
prendre  pris (took)
mettre  mis (put)
voir  vu (saw)
boire  bu (drank)
lire  lu (read)
écrire  écrit (wrote)
avoir  eu (had)
dire  dit (said)
faire  fait(did/made)
pouvoir  pu (could)
YOU MUST LEARN THESE
Finally, there is a small group of verbs
that use the verb ‘être’ instead of
‘avoir’. Remember that you still have to
always use the correct part:
Je suis (I)
nous sommes (we)
Tu es (you)
vous êtes
(you)
Il/elle/on est (he/she/we) ils/elles sont (they)
AGAIN, YOU MUST LEARN THIS
monter – to go up
tomber – to fall
rester – to stay
rentrer – to re-enter
sortir – to go out
arriver – to arrive
venir – to come
mourir – to die
aller – to go
partir – to leave
naître – to be born
déscendre – to go down
entrer – to go in
retourner – to return
Mrs Van Der Tramp!!
You have to remember that with the
verbs that use ‘être’, you have to make
the verb agree:
e.g.
Il est allé
Elle est allée
Nous sommes allés
Elles sont allées
All ‘reflexive’ verbs eg. ‘se laver,’ ‘se
coucher’, ‘s’habiller’ etc. also use ‘être’
to form the perfect tense:
Je me suis couché(e)
Nous nous sommes lavés
Ils se sont habillés
etc.