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A2 · Verb Tenses · Published
Passé Composé
The passé composé is the everyday French past tense for completed actions: it says what happened. You assemble it from two pieces — the present tense of avoir or être (the helper verb) plus a past participle:
J’ai fini. Elle est arrivée.
English builds "she has arrived" the same way but uses that shape sparingly. French uses the passé composé for almost every finished action in conversation, so it covers both "I finished" and "I have finished". The real work is choosing the right pieces: which helper, and which participle form.
This page covers the assembly: forming the participle, picking avoir or être, agreement, and negation. Deciding between the passé composé and the imparfait is a separate skill with its own page, Passé Composé vs Imparfait.
In short
- Passé composé = present-tense helper + past participle:
j’ai mangé,elle est arrivée. - Most verbs take avoir; a small group of movement and change-of-state verbs (plus all reflexive verbs) takes être.
- With être, the participle agrees with the subject:
ils sont partis,elle est partie.
avoir + participleêtre + participletime word or adverbnegation· hover a highlighted word for its label
Two pieces: helper + participle
Every passé composé is assembled from the same two parts. The helper verb is avoir or être conjugated in the present tense — it carries the person and number. The past participle carries the meaning, the same way "finished" does in "I have finished".
subject + avoir or être in the present + past participle
I finished my homework.
— Helper avoir in the present (ai) + participle (fini).
She arrived early.
— Être verb: the participle takes -e to agree with elle.
Regular past participles
For regular verbs, the participle comes straight from the infinitive ending. Three endings cover thousands of verbs.
| Infinitive ends in | Participle ends in | Example |
|---|---|---|
| -er (parler) | -é (parlé) | j’ai parlé — I spoke |
| -ir (choisir) | -i (choisi) | tu as choisi — you chose |
| -re (vendre) | -u (vendu) | il a vendu — he sold |
We sold the car this morning.
— Vendre → vendu: a regular -re verb.
Marie worked late on Friday evening.
— Travailler → travaillé: a regular -er verb.
Irregular participles: the key fifteen
Many of the most frequent French verbs have irregular participles. There is no shortcut: learn them as vocabulary. These fifteen carry most of everyday conversation.
| Verb | Participle | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| avoir | eu | had |
| être | été | been |
| faire | fait | done, made |
| dire | dit | said |
| écrire | écrit | written |
| mettre | mis | put |
| prendre | pris | taken |
| voir | vu | seen |
| boire | bu | drunk |
| lire | lu | read |
| pouvoir | pu | been able to |
| vouloir | voulu | wanted |
| devoir | dû | had to |
| savoir | su | known, found out |
| ouvrir | ouvert | opened |
I took the eight o’clock train.
— Prendre → pris, not "prendu".
She wrote a letter to the mayor.
— Écrire → écrit.
Avoir or être?
Most French verbs — the overwhelming majority — take avoir. A small group of verbs of movement and change of state takes être instead: aller, venir, partir, arriver, rester, naître, mourir and their relatives. Learners memorize this group with the DR MRS VANDERTRAMP mnemonic.
Reflexive verbs (se lever, se réveiller…) always take être as well — how they behave in the passé composé is covered on the reflexive verbs page.
They went to the market without me.
— Aller is an être verb; allés agrees with ils.
We stayed home on Sunday.
— Rester counts as a change-of-state verb — staying is its own kind of (non-)movement.
Agreement: when the participle changes
With être, the past participle behaves like an adjective: it agrees with the subject in gender and number. Add -e for feminine, -s for plural, -es for feminine plural:
Il est parti. Elle est partie. Ils sont partis. Elles sont parties.
With avoir, the participle does not agree with the subject.
Elle a fini. Elles ont fini.
There is one refinement: when a direct object stands before the verb, the participle agrees with that object. Those subtleties are their own topic, past participle agreement, covered separately.
They came home late last night.
— Feminine plural subject → rentrées.
Negation and adverbs
In the negative, ne and pas wrap around the helper, not the participle. The participle stays outside, after pas.
subject + ne + helper + pas + past participle Short, common adverbs — déjà, encore, bien, mal, trop — also slip between the helper and the participle: >violet Elle a déjà fini. Nous avons bien compris.
She did not hear her alarm.
— Ne…pas surrounds the helper a; entendu follows.
We have already visited this museum.
— Déjà sits between the helper and the participle.
Common mistakes
✗Hier, je fini mon travail.
✓Hier, j’ai fini mon travail.
English can use one word ("I finished"), but the passé composé always needs its helper — the participle alone is not a past tense.
✗J’ai allé au cinéma hier soir.
✓Je suis allé au cinéma hier soir.
Aller belongs to the movement group, so its helper is être, not avoir.
✗Elle est resté chez elle.
✓Elle est restée chez elle.
With être, the participle agrees with the subject — a feminine subject adds -e.
✗Il a prendu le bus.
✓Il a pris le bus.
Prendre has the irregular participle pris; the regular -re → -u rule does not apply to it.
✗Nous n’avons regardé pas le match.
✓Nous n’avons pas regardé le match.
Ne…pas wraps around the helper only; the participle comes after pas.
Check yourself
1 / 4Hier, nous ___ un bon film. (regarder)
2 / 4Marie ___ à la gare à midi. (arriver)
3 / 4Tu ___ tes clés ? (prendre)
4 / 4Which sentence is correct?
Frequently asked questions
How do I know whether a verb takes avoir or être in the passé composé?
Most verbs take avoir. A small group of movement and change-of-state verbs — memorized as the DR MRS VANDERTRAMP list — takes être, and every reflexive verb takes être as well.
Is the passé composé the same as the English present perfect?
They share the same shape (helper + participle), but not the same job. French uses the passé composé for nearly every completed past action in speech, where English usually prefers the simple past ("I finished").
When do I use the passé composé instead of the imparfait?
Use the passé composé for completed events that move a story forward, and the imparfait for background: descriptions, habits, ongoing states. The full decision system, with signal words and side-by-side examples, is on the Passé Composé vs Imparfait page.
Does the past participle agree with the subject after avoir?
No. After avoir the participle never agrees with the subject: elle a fini, elles ont fini. It can agree with a direct object placed before the verb, a refinement that belongs to the separate topic of past participle agreement.
Memory tip
Every passé composé has two beats: j’ai fini, elle est arrivée. If your sentence about the past has only one beat (je fini), a piece is missing — add the helper.
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