Passé Composé: French Past Tense

• The passé composé expresses completed actions in French
• It is a common past tense, along with the imparfait
• This compound tense uses an auxiliary verb (avoir or être) and the past participle

Formation with Avoir

• Most verbs form the passé composé with avoir
• The structure is: conjugated avoir + past participle
• To form -er verb past participles, replace -er with -é (e.g., parler → parlé)
• To form -ir verb past participles, replace -ir with -i (e.g., finir → fini)
• To form -re verb past participles, replace -re with -u (e.g., vendre → vendu)
• Example: J'ai parlé (I spoke/I have spoken); J'ai is the present tense of avoir, parlé is the past participle of parler
• Example: Nous avons fini (We finished/We have finished); Nous avons is the present tense of avoir, fini is the past participle of finir
• Example: Ils ont vendu (They sold/They have sold); Ils ont is the present tense of avoir, vendu is the past participle of vendre
• The past participle with avoir usually does not agree with the subject
• However, the past participle agrees with a preceding direct object pronoun (e.g., Je l'ai vue - I saw her)

Formation with Être

• Verbs of motion or state use être
• Common verbs of motion and state include: aller, venir, arriver, partir, naître, mourir, descendre, monter, rester, retourner, tomber
• The structure is: conjugated être + past participle
• Example: Je suis allé(e) (I went); Je suis is the present tense of être, allé(e) is the past participle of aller
• Example: Nous sommes arrivés (We arrived); Nous sommes is the present tense of être, arrivés is the past participle of arriver
• The past participle with être agrees in gender and number with the subject
• Add -e for feminine singular subjects
• Add -s for masculine plural subjects
• Add -es for feminine plural subjects
• Example: Elle est allée (She went)
• Example: Ils sont allés (They went - masculine)
• Example: Elles sont allées (They went - feminine)
• Reflexive verbs also use être
• Reflexive verbs' action reflects back on the subject
• They use se before the infinitive (e.g., se laver - to wash oneself)
• The structure is: reflexive pronoun + conjugated être + past participle
• Example: Je me suis lavé(e) (I washed myself)
• Example: Ils se sont lavés (They washed themselves)
• The past participle with reflexive verbs usually agrees in gender and number with the subject unless there is a direct object following the verb

Irregular Past Participles

• French verbs have irregular past participles which must be memorized
  • avoir → eu
  • être → été
  • faire → fait
  • prendre → pris
  • mettre → mis
  • dire → dit
  • écrire → écrit
  • lire → lu
  • voir → vu
  • boire → bu
  • vouloir → voulu
  • pouvoir → pu
  • devoir → dû
  • savoir → su
  • ouvrir → ouvert
  • offrir → offert

Negation in Passé Composé

• Place ne before the auxiliary verb and pas after it to negate
• Example: Je n'ai pas mangé (I did not eat/I have not eaten)
• Example: Elle n'est pas allée (She did not go/She has not gone)
• With reflexive verbs, ne precedes the reflexive pronoun, and pas follows the auxiliary verb
• Example: Je ne me suis pas lavé(e) (I did not wash myself/I have not washed myself)

Use of Passé Composé

• Generally used for completed past actions
• These actions occurred at a specific point in time
• These actions had a definite beginning and end
• The actions are viewed as a single, completed event
• Often used to narrate sequences of past events
• It is often contrasted with the imparfait, which describes ongoing or habitual past actions
• The passé composé describes what happened, while the imparfait describes what was happening
• Example: Hier, j'ai mangé une pomme et j'ai bu du jus (Yesterday, I ate an apple and I drank juice) illustrates completed actions
• Example: Quand j'étais petit, je jouais au foot (When I was little, I used to play soccer) illustrates jouais in the imparfait as a habitual action and étais as a state of being
• Signal words linked include: hier, avant-hier, l'année dernière, la semaine dernière, soudain, tout à coup, une fois, un jour

The passé composé is a common French past tense for completed actions. It combines an auxiliary verb (avoir or être) with the past participle. Most verbs use avoir as the auxiliary verb.