Le Passé Composé
Format
• Subj + Helping Verb + Past Participle
• Helping Verb: avoir or être
avoir
être (only with certain verbs!)
J’ai
Nous avons Je suis Nous sommes
Tu as Vous avez
Tu es Vous êtes
Il/Elle a Ils/Elles ont Il/elle est Ils/Elles sont
To get the Past Participle:
• Take off the ending of the action verb you are
using and replace with the following:
- er  - é
- ir  - i
- re  - u
Ex: parler  parlé
Ex: finir  fini
Ex: perdre  perdu
Common Irregular Past Participles
avoir
être
faire
mettre
prendre
voir






eu
été
fait
mis
pris
vu
Now put it together!
Ex: J’ai parlé. – I spoke.
Ex: Tu as perdu le match. – You lost the game.
Ex: Elles ont mangé. – They ate.
And the verbs that use être?
• There are 17 verbs (for now, anyway) that use
être as their helping verb. They are called
“Dr Mrs Vandertrampp”
verbs (it’s an acronym)
There are 5 irregular past participles in
the list.They are underlined.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
D evenir – to become / devenu
R evenir – to come again/ revenu
M onter – to go up/to get on
R ester – to stay
S ortir – to go out
V enir – to come/ venu
A ller – to go
N aître – to be born/ né
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
D escendre – to go down/to get down
E ntrer – to enter
R entrer – to return (home)
T omber – to fall
R etourner –to go back
A rriver – to arrive
M ourir – to die/ mort
P asser – to pass (by)
P artir – to leave
Not quite done…
• If you use être as your helping verb because you
are using a Dr Mrs Vandertrampp verb, you must
have Subject/Verb agreement. Add these to the
end of the past participle.
masculine  ---feminine  -e
masculine plural  -s
feminine plural  -es
Now put it together!
Ex: Je suis allé au magasin.  I went to the
store. (And “I” am a dude.)
Ex: Elles sont sorties.  They went out. (the
girls)
*Vous and Nous forms will always be mpl.
Now: avoir or être?
Step 1: Look at your verb. Is it DRMRSV?
no use avoir yesuse être
Step 2: Look at your subject: Conjugate Helping Verb
Step 3: Look at your verb again. Is it irregular?
nofind PP
yesput irregular PP
Step 4: Look at your verb again. Is it DRMRSV?
noyou’re done!
Yesadd agreement
Negation
• Format:
Subj + ne(n’) + Helping Verb + pas + Past Participle
ne and pas will hug the helping verb.
use n’ if your helping verb begins with a vowel.
Ex: Je n’ai pas mangé. – I didn’t eat.
Negation with ‘jamais’
déjà – ever, already
ne…jamais – never
Ex: Est-ce que tu as déjà mangé des escargots?
- Have you ever eaten snails?
Ex: Non, Je n’ai jamais mangé des escargots.
- No, I have never eaten snails.
More negation
quelque chose – something
Ne…rien – nothing
Ex: Tu as entendu quelque chose? – Did you
hear something?
Ex: Non, je n’ai rien entendu. – No, I heard
nothing.
quelqu’un – someone/somebody
ne…personne – no one/nobody
DOES NOT FOLLOW THE SAME RULE!
Ex: Je n’ai vu personne. – I saw no one. (I didn’t
see anyone.)
Personne will come after the past participle.