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French 2 Unit 2: The Passé Composé with Avoir

The passé composé tells what happened: completed actions in the past. Most verbs form it with the present tense of avoir plus a past participle, so this unit is the foundation of every past-tense story you will tell.

Covers: Forming the passé composé, Regular past participles, Irregular past participles, Negation and questions, Adverb placement, Past time expressions, Preceding direct object agreement

Study guide

The passé composé is a compound tense: it has two parts. The first part is an auxiliary (helping) verb in the present tense, and for most verbs that auxiliary is avoir: j'ai, tu as, il/elle/on a, nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ont. The second part is the past participle of the main verb. J'ai mangé can be translated "I ate," "I have eaten" or "I did eat," depending on context. The tense describes actions that are completed and bounded in time: Hier, nous avons regardé un film. Ils ont fini leurs devoirs à neuf heures.

Regular past participles are easy to form from the infinitive. For -er verbs, drop -er and add -é: parler → parlé, manger → mangé, acheter → acheté. For -ir verbs like finir, drop -ir and add -i: finir → fini, choisir → choisi, dormir → dormi. For regular -re verbs, drop -re and add -u: vendre → vendu, attendre → attendu, perdre → perdu. All three groups sound different, so listen for é, i and u at the end of the participle.

Many common verbs have irregular past participles that you must memorize. Avoir → eu, être → été, faire → fait, prendre → pris (also apprendre → appris, comprendre → compris), mettre → mis, dire → dit, écrire → écrit, voir → vu, lire → lu, boire → bu, pouvoir → pu, vouloir → voulu, devoir → dû, savoir → su, recevoir → reçu, connaître → connu, ouvrir → ouvert, offrir → offert, courir → couru, vivre → vécu, pleuvoir → plu. A useful trick is to group them by ending: the -u group (eu, vu, lu, bu, pu, su, voulu), the -is group (pris, mis) and the -t group (fait, dit, écrit, ouvert).

In the negative, ne ... pas surrounds the auxiliary, not the participle: Je n'ai pas compris. Elle n'a jamais vu Paris. In questions, use intonation, est-ce que, or invert the subject with the auxiliary: As-tu fini ? A-t-il téléphoné ? (add -t- between two vowels). Short adverbs such as bien, mal, déjà, encore, souvent, toujours, beaucoup, trop and assez usually go between the auxiliary and the participle: J'ai bien dormi. Tu as déjà mangé ? Longer time words like hier and aujourd'hui go at the beginning or end of the sentence.

Common time markers signal the passé composé: hier (yesterday), hier soir, avant-hier, la semaine dernière, le mois dernier, l'année dernière, ce matin, il y a deux jours (two days ago), une fois, soudain. One more rule appears on tests: when a direct object comes before a verb conjugated with avoir, the past participle agrees with that object in gender and number. Les photos ? Je les ai prises. La lettre que tu as écrite est belle. If the object comes after the verb, there is no agreement: J'ai pris les photos.

Key ideas

• The passé composé expresses completed actions in the past.
• It is formed with the present tense of an auxiliary (usually avoir) plus a past participle.
• Regular participles end in -é (-er verbs), -i (-ir verbs) and -u (-re verbs).
• Many high-frequency verbs have irregular participles that must be memorized.
• Ne ... pas and inversion apply to the auxiliary, not to the participle.
• Short adverbs go between the auxiliary and the past participle.
• With avoir, the participle agrees only with a direct object placed before the verb.

Formulas and rules

Common mistakes

• Putting pas after the participle, as in *J'ai mangé pas instead of Je n'ai pas mangé.
• Regularizing irregular verbs, as in *j'ai prendu or *j'ai faisé.
• Using the wrong regular ending, as in *j'ai finé or *j'ai vendé.
• Forgetting the auxiliary, as in *Je mangé instead of J'ai mangé.
• Making the participle agree when the direct object follows the verb, as in *J'ai prises les photos.

Before the test, make sure you can

• Conjugate avoir in the present tense and combine it with a past participle.
• Form regular past participles of -er, -ir and -re verbs.
• Recall the irregular past participles of at least 20 common verbs.
• Make passé composé sentences negative with ne ... pas around the auxiliary.
• Ask passé composé questions with est-ce que and with inversion.
• Place short adverbs such as déjà and bien correctly.
• Translate expressions of past time, including il y a + time.
• Recognize when a past participle agrees with a preceding direct object.

Words to know

hier

yesterday

hier soir

last night

avant-hier

the day before yesterday

la semaine dernière

last week

l'année dernière

last year

il y a

ago

déjà

already

pas encore

not yet

faire les courses

to go grocery shopping

regarder un film

to watch a movie

jouer au foot

to play soccer

faire le ménage

to clean the house

rendre visite à

to visit (a person)

visiter

to visit (a place)

fait

done, made

pris

taken

vu

seen

eu

had

été

been

dit

said

écrit

written

mis

put

Sample practice questions

30 more questions like these, from level 1 to 5, are in the practice set.