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The passé composé is the most important past tense in French. It corresponds to the English simple past. The passé composé talks about actions that were completed in the past and emphasises their results or consequences in the present. Learn about the passé composé with Lingolia’s examples, then check your knowledge in the free exercises.
- Free Exercise
Complete the sentences with the correct form of the passé...
- Vocabulary Calendar
Available in German, English, French, Spanish, and...
- Present Perfect
The present perfect connects the past with the present. Use...
- Questions
Questions without question-words are those we can answer...
- Overview of French Tenses
Overview of French Tenses. The table below presents an...
- Free Exercise
- When to Use The French Passé Composé
- Verbe Auxiliare
- Forming The Participe Passé
- Passé Composé in Negative Statements
- Passé Composé in Questions
- Where to Practice The Passé Composé
The passé composé is a verb tense used to talk about the past, but it’s not the only past tense in French. For instance, there’s the imparfait (imperfect), which describes repeated or habitual actions, as well as the passé simple (simple past), which is employed in literature. So what exactly does the passé composé do? The passé composé is the prim...
The auxiliary verb is the first part of the passé composé,meaning it comes after the subject and before the past participle. The auxiliary verb is always either avoir or êtreconjugated the same way it would normally be with the subject. Here’s a close-up of the passé composé in-action: Subject + auxiliary verb + past participle Il + a + cuisiné. Th...
The participe passé (past participle) is the second piece of the passé composé, following the verbe auxiliare (auxiliary verb). The past participle is employed in other grammatical constructions (not just with the passé composé),but there’s a good chance this is the first time you’re encountering it. To form the past participle, you’ll simply take ...
Hopefully, you’re never accused of a crime in France, but knowing how to explain that you did not do a particular thingis still helpful. You may recall that the normal negative construction is: Subject + ne + verb + pas [+ additional information} Je + ne + joue + pas + aux échecs. Je ne joue pas aux échecs. (I don’t play chess.) But what does it lo...
You may remember that there are three ways to form a question in French. We’ll review each one with examples using the passé composé. For yes or no questions, it’s typical to just say a statement with rising intonationto indicate that you expect confirmation. We do the same thing in English, and the word order is exactly the same as in a declarativ...
Learning the passé composé can be confusing, but practice will make all the grammatical pieces fall into place much more easily. Once you’re ready to tackle the passé composé yourself, try out these resources to put your skills to the test! 1. Tex’s French Grammar. This handy site is affiliated with the University of Texas and contains several gram...
Let's see when and how to use each tense, with examples and practice exercises. Love French & France. 1. Le Passé Composé. The passé composé is used for actions that are completed in the recent past. It's similar to the English simple past or present perfect. It's formed with Avoir or être at the present tense + past participle of the main ...
The imperfect past tense. The compound past tense. The past simple. The pluperfect past tense. The anterior past tense. Each of these past tenses are used for different reasons. Yes, they’re all past tenses, but there are certain rules that you’ll need to be aware of when forming and using them.
French conjugation: the best way to learn how to conjugate a French verb. Write the infinitive or a conjugated form and the French Conjugator will provide you a list of all the verb tenses and persons: future, participle, present, subjunctive, auxiliary verb. Translate a French verb in context, with examples of use and see its definition.
Conjugation of the regular verb [astonish] Conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb "break" can be conjugated to form the words break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking.
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The following is the passé composé of the verb parler (to speak). The past participle parlé is the same for every person and the auxiliary verb avoir (to have) changes in accordance with each subject. In French, every verb has one single past particle. This makes learning the passé composé much easier than the present tense.