How to Make the Passé Composé with Auxiliary Verbs in French

The passé composé is an important tense in French. It helps us talk about actions that are finished and happened in the past.

To make the passé composé, we need two main parts:

1. An auxiliary verb
2. The past participle of the main verb

1. Auxiliary Verbs

In French, we use two auxiliary verbs to create the passé composé: avoir (which means "to have") and être (which means "to be"). The verb we choose depends on the main verb.

• Avoir is used the most. For example:
  • J'ai mangé (I ate).
• Être is used with some verbs, especially verbs about movement or reflexive verbs. For example:
  • Je suis allé(e) (I went).

Present Tense of Avoir and Être:

• Avoir:
  • j'ai (I have),
  • tu as (you have),
  • il/elle/on a (he/she/one has),
  • nous avons (we have),
  • vous avez (you all have),
  • ils/elles ont (they have)
• Être:
  • je suis (I am),
  • tu es (you are),
  • il/elle/on est (he/she/one is),
  • nous sommes (we are),
  • vous êtes (you all are),
  • ils/elles sont (they are)

2. Making the Past Participle

The past participle changes based on the verb group:

• Regular verbs:

  • -er verbs: change to -é (like parler → parlé)
  • -ir verbs: change to -i (like finir → fini)
  • -re verbs: change to -u (like vendre → vendu)

• Irregular verbs: These need to be memorized (for example, faire → fait, voir → vu).

3. Agreement in Gender and Number

When we use être as our auxiliary verb, the past participle has to match the subject in gender and number:

• Singular: Elle est allée (She went).
• Plural: Ils sont partis (They left).

4. Reflexive Verbs

For reflexive verbs, we also use être as the auxiliary verb. For example:

• Je me suis levé(e) (I got up).

Practice Sentences

• J'ai regardé un film. (I watched a movie.)
• Tu es resté(e) chez moi. (You stayed at my place.)

By learning how to form the passé composé, you can easily talk about past actions in French!