French Passé Composé

What Is the Passé Composé?

The passé composé is used for completed actions in the past, like "I ate" or "I went". It is built from two parts: a helper verb (avoir or être) in the present tense, plus a past participle.

Forming -ER Past Participles

For regular -er verbs, drop the -er ending and add -é to make the past participle.

Conjugating with AVOIR: PARLER (to speak)

Most French verbs use avoir as the helper verb. The past participle usually stays the same across all subjects.

Irregular Past Participles

Some very common verbs have irregular past participles that need to be memorised, not built with a rule.

• •faire → fait (j'ai fait = I did / made)
• •voir → vu (j'ai vu = I saw)
• •prendre → pris (j'ai pris = I took)
• •lire → lu (j'ai lu = I read)
• •avoir → eu (j'ai eu = I had / got)
• •être → été (j'ai été = I was / went)

A Few Verbs Use ÊTRE Instead of AVOIR

A small group of mostly movement and state verbs use être as their helper verb instead of avoir.

• •aller → je suis allé(e) = I went
• •partir → je suis parti(e) = I left
• •arriver → je suis arrivé(e) = I arrived
• •rester → je suis resté(e) = I stayed
• •tomber → je suis tombé(e) = I fell
• •naître → je suis né(e) = I was born

Past Participle Agreement with ÊTRE

With être verbs, the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject, like an adjective. Add -e for feminine, -s for plural.

Past Time Expressions

These expressions tell you when a past action happened.

• •hier = yesterday
• •hier soir = last night
• •ce matin = this morning
• •la semaine dernière = last week
• •le weekend dernier = last weekend
• •il y a deux jours = two days ago
• •l'année dernière = last year
• •déjà = already

Where Time Expressions Go

Longer time expressions like hier or le weekend dernier usually start the sentence. Déjà is different: it slots in between the helper verb and the past participle.

Building a Full Past Sentence

A complete passé composé sentence combines a time expression, the subject, the correct helper verb, and the past participle.

Common Mistakes

These are the slips learners make most often when building the passé composé.

• •✗ J'ai allé / ✓ Je suis allé (aller always uses être, never avoir)
• •✗ Il a resté / ✓ Il est resté (rester uses être, not avoir)
• •✗ Elle est allé / ✓ Elle est allée (the participle must agree with a feminine subject when using être)
• •✗ J'ai voir / ✓ J'ai vu (use the past participle vu, not the infinitive voir)