1. The Passé Composé
of –er verbs

2. To tell what happened in the past, use the passé composé verb tense in French.
Passé composé has two parts: a helping verb and a past participle.
Most verbs use avoir as their helping verb. Use the form of avoir that matches the subject of the sentence.
Replace the –er verb ending with é to form a verb’s past participle.

3. chercher (to look for) J’ ai cherché nous avons cherché tu as cherché
vous
avez cherché
il/elle/on
a cherché
ils/elles
ont cherché

4. The passé composé can be translated in three different ways in English.
J’ai mangé:
I ate
I have eaten
I did eat

5. To say something didn’t happen, place ne…pas around the helping verb.
Je n’ai pas trouvé de chemise à ma taille.
I didn’t find a shirt in my size.