Passé Composé The Past Tense

Le Passé Composé The past tense is used to express an event that occurred in the past and is complete. To do this in French you use: 1. The present tense conjugation of the helping or auxillary verb. a. this can be either avoir or etre 2. Add the past participle Note: the following examples are with avoir.

The Past Participle 1.The past participle is different for each group of verbs. a. For group 1 ‘er’ verbs: remove the ‘er’ and add é. Je parle - I speak J’ai parlé- I spoke

The Past Participle c. For group 2 ‘ir’ verbs: remove the ‘ir’ and add i. Je finis- I finish J’ai fini- I finished

The Past Participle b. For group 3 ‘re’ verbs: remove the ‘re’ and add u. J’attends- I am waiting J’ai attendu- I waited

The Past Participle 2.The irregular verbs also have irregular past participles. d. Here is a list of some of the irregular past participles: Avoir-eu Etre-été Pouvoir-pu Vouloir-voulu Comprendre-compris Prendre-pris Apprendre-appris Aller-allé(être) Faire-fait

Le Passé Composé with être Not all verbs use avoir as the helping or auxillary verb. Verbs which show motion with a change in location use the verb être as the auxillary or helping verb. Je suis allé- I went

Le Passé Composé with être When être is used, the past participle agrees in number and gender with the subject or subject pronoun. –That means that if the subject is feminine, you add an ‘e’ to the past participle. –If the subject is plural, you add an ‘s’ to the past participle. –If the subject is feminine plural, you add an ‘es’ to the past participle. »Elle est alléeShe wentFeminine »Ils sont allésThey wentMasculine plural »Elles sont alléesThey(girls) wentFeminine plural