1. Passé Composé
AVOIR

2. Basic Formation
The past tense in French is a COMPOUND tense, meaning it has 2 parts to the verb. It is not a simple tense, like present, that only has one part to the verb (EX: je regarde). The past tense, passé composé, is composed of a conjugation of avoir (this is called the auxillary or helping verb) plus a past participle.

3. Auxillary Verb – Avoir STEP ONE
Do you remember the forms of avoir?
J’ai
Tu as
Il/elle/on a
Nous avons
Vous avez
Ils/elles ont

4. Past Participle – REGULAR VERBS STEP 2
1. For verbs ending in –er, to make a past participle, drop the –r and add an accent aigu to the e (é)
EX: regarder  regardé
2. For verbs that end in –ir, simply drop the –r.
- EX: finir  fini
3. For verbs that end in –re, drop the –re and add u.
EX: perdre  perdu

5. EXAMPLES We watched TV last night.
Nous avons regardé la télé hier soir.
He finished his homework.
Il a fini ses devoirs.
I lost the game.
J’ai perdu le match.

6. NEGATION
To make a past tense verb negative, put ne…pas or any other negative expression around the verb, which in past tense is the form of AVOIR.
EX: j’ai fini
Je ai fini n’
pas

7. Question Formation Questions in the past tense can be done in 3 ways:
1. Intonation – write it as a statement, but your voice goes up at the end to ask the question:
EX: Tu as fini tes devoirs?

8. Est-ce que 2. Use est-ce que at the beginning of your sentence:
Est-ce que tu as fini tes devoirs?

9. Inversion
3. Inversion – this is most common in speech. Invert (flip-flop) the subject and the verb (form of avoir)
EX: fini tes devoirs (statement)
Inversion – tu as -
fini tes devoirs?

10. Inversion NOTE:
In the il/elle/on forms, insert a –t- between the form of avoir and the subject for pronunciation reasons (2 vowels together)
EX: A-t-elle fini ses devoirs? A-t-il fini ses devoirs? A-t-on fini nos devoirs?