1. Point de départ
In order to talk about events in the past, French uses two principal tenses: the passé composé and the imperfect. In this lesson, you will learn how to form the passé composé, which is used to express actions or states of being completed in the past. You will learn about the imperfect in Leçon 7B.
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2. The passé composé of most verbs is formed with a present-tense form of avoir (the auxiliary verb) followed by the past participle of the verb expressing the action.
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3. The past participle of a regular -er verb is formed by replacing the -er ending of the infinitive with -é.
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4. Most regular -er verbs are conjugated in the passé composé like the verb parler shown below.
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5. To make a verb negative in the passé composé, place ne/n’ and pas around the conjugated form of avoir.
To ask questions using inversion in the passé composé, invert the subject pronoun and the conjugated form of avoir.
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6. The adverbs hier (yesterday) and avant-hier (the day before yesterday) are used often with the passé composé.
Place the adverbs déjà, encore, bien, mal, and beaucoup between the auxiliary verb or pas and the past participle.
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7. The past participle of spelling-change -er verbs has no spelling changes.
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8. The past participle of most -ir verbs is formed by replacing the -ir ending with -i.
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10. The passé composé of il faut is il a fallu; that of il y a is il y a eu.
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11. Essayez! Indiquez les formes du passé composé des verbes.
1. j’ ________________________ (commencer, payer, bavarder)
2. tu ________________________ (servir, comprendre, donner)
3. on ________________________ (parler, avoir, dormir)
4. nous ________________________ (adorer, faire, amener)
5. vous ________________________ (prendre, employer, courir)
6. elles ________________________ (espérer, boire, apprendre)
ai commencé, ai payé, ai bavardé
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