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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...
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Available in German, English, French, Spanish, and...
- Present Perfect
The present perfect connects the past with the present. Use...
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Questions without question-words are those we can answer...
- Overview of French Tenses
Overview of French Tenses. The table below presents an...
- Free Exercise
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.
- Choose Your Helping Verb/Auxiliary Verb
- Add The Past Participle
- Make The Verb Agree in Number and Gender
The first step to conjugating a verb in the passé composé is to find out what helping verb (also called auxiliary verb) it uses: être or avoir.
Verbs in the passé composé are formed by putting together a helping verb (être or avoir) conjugated in the present tense + a past participle. Once you know what helping verb to use, all you need to do is add the past participle of the verb you want to conjugate. The majority of French verbs are regular and forming their past participle is easy. Sim...
Passé composé agreement of verbs using être as a helping verb
Verbs using être as a helping verb to form their passé composé agree in gender and number with the subject. 1. Je suis arrivé(e) => you add a e if the subject if female. 2. Ils sont arrivé(s) (you add a “s” is the subject is plural). 3. Elles sont arrivé(es) ( you add a e plus a s if the subject is plural and female.) If the subject is a group of 10 women and 1 man, you are supposed to act as if the entire group was male because French grammarconsiders that male always wins. There is, however...
Passé composé agreement of verbs using avoir as a helping verb
Verbs using avoir in the passé composé only need to agree with preceding direct objects. A simple way to know whether a verb has a preceding direct object is to ask what? after the verb. La tarte qu’elle a mangée était excellente. The tart she ate was excellent. Here you can say, she ate what? The tart. Since tart comes before the verb and is female, you need to agree in number and add a “e” to mangé. If this all sounds complicated don’t worry. While it takes a while to get used to all these...
- Camille Chevalier-Karfis
- What is the French Passé Composé? The passé composé is a French tense used for the past. The passé composé corresponds mostly to the English simple past or the present perfect.
- What is an Auxiliary Verb? An auxiliary verb helps another verb to form a tense. He has been gone for ever. Has = auxiliary verb. Been = auxiliary verb.
- What is a Participle? A participle is a verb form used with an auxiliary verb to form a tense, or when a verb is used as an adjective. 1. He has closed the window.
- French Passé Composé – Construction. Most verbs use “avoir”, to have to form their passé composé. A – To have conjugation. Conjugation. Translation. J’ai. I have.
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.
May 5, 2023 · Here’s a close-up of the passé composé in-action: Subject + auxiliary verb + past participle. Il + a + cuisiné. The subject is il (he), and the auxiliary verb is avoir, which becomes a when conjugated with il. Finally, the past participle is cuisiné, from the infinitive cuisiner (to cook). The full sentence is:
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Feb 22, 2022 · A tense defines the time frame in which the action of the verb takes place: past, present, or future. The following French verb tenses chart explains when to use each tense. It shows how compound tenses build off simpler ones and conjugate verbs for each tense: chanter (to sing) and se laver (to wash oneself).
