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You are here: Home / Learn French / French Grammar / The Ultimate Guide to the Passé Composé
The Ultimate Guide to the Passé Composé

The Ultimate Guide to the Passé Composé

by Benjamin Houy 21 Comments

“Please don’t use the passé simple tense in your essay.”

This is the first sentence our professor told us, a group of French college students, as we were about to take an exam.

“Most French college students don’t know how to use the passé simple properly”, he went on.

My professor was right. Most French people don’t know how to use the passé simple properly because they rarely need to use it.

This is great news for you as a French learner, because it means you probably don’t need to bother learning this complicated tense.

if your only goal is to communicate with locals, you only need to know two French past tenses: le passé composé and l’imparfait.

Today’s article will show you when and how to use the passé composé! You will see, it’s not that complicated!

Contents

  • 1 When should you use the passé composé?
  • 2 How to conjugate verbs in the passé composé tense
    • 2.1 #1 Choose your helping verb
    • 2.2 Conjugation
    • 2.3 Translation
    • 2.4 Conjugation
    • 2.5 Translation
    • 2.6 #2 Add the past participle
    • 2.7 Pronoun
    • 2.8 Conjugation
    • 2.9 Translation
    • 2.10 Pronoun
    • 2.11 Conjugation
    • 2.12 Translation
    • 2.13 Pronoun
    • 2.14 Conjugation
    • 2.15 Translation
    • 2.16 Pronoun
    • 2.17 Conjugation
    • 2.18 Translation
    • 2.19 #3 Make the verb agree in number and gender

When should you use the passé composé?

woman jumping

The bad news is that French people use several past tenses.

The good news is that le passé composé is the most common tense and that you can already express yourself well if it’s the only French past tense you know.

Le passé composé is the equivalent of:

  • The simple past (j’ai fait, I did)
  • The present perfect (j’ai fait, I have done)

You use it to highlight the consequences of past actions and to talk about:

  • Completed actions.
  • Repeated actions.
  • Series of actions.
  • Conditions in likely situations.

How to conjugate verbs in the passé composé tense

The passé composé is a compound tense, meaning you need two components to conjugate a verb.

  1. A helping verb (être or avoir) conjugated in the present tense.
  2. The past participle of the verb you want to conjugate.

Let’s see how this works in practice!

#1 Choose your helping verb

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.

Avoir

Avoir (to have) is the most common helping verb.

If you ever find yourself in the middle of a conversation wondering whether to use avoir or être to conjugate in the passé composé, choose avoir. It’s the most common helping verb and is likely to be the one you need.

Once you know the verb you want to conjugate in the passé composé uses “avoir”, you simply need to conjugate avoir in the present tense and add the past participle.

Conjugation

Translation

J’aiI have
Tu asYou have
Il/elle/on aHe/she/it has
Nous avonsWe have
Vous avezYou have
Ils/elles ontThey have

Être

Dr and Mrs Vandertrampp

Être is less common than “avoir” as a helping verb but a few common French verbs use it when conjugated in the passé composé.

An easy way to remember some of these verbs is to use the Dr and Mrs Vandertrampp mnemonics.

Each letter in the sentence Dr and Mrs Vandertrampp represents the beginning of a verb that uses être as a helping verb when conjugated in the passé composé.

  • Devenir
  • Revenir
  • Mourir
  • Retourner
  • Sortir
  • Venir
  • Arriver
  • Naitre
  • Descendre
  • Entrer
  • Rentrer
  • Tomber
  • Rester
  • Aller
  • Monter
  • Partir
  • Passer

Other verbs that use être include:

  • All reflexive verbs (verbs that use “se”.)
  • Some verbs indicating movement or a change of state.

Once you know the verb you want to conjugate in the passé composé uses être, it’s time to conjugate être in the present tense

Conjugation

Translation

Je suisI am
Tu esYou are
Il/elle/on estHe/she/it is
Nous sommesWe are
Vous êtesYou are
Ils/elles sontThey are

#2 Add the past participle

past participle french

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.

Simply use the recipe below:

Regular ER verbs => é
Regular IR verbs => i
Regular RE verbs => u

Manger => J’ai mangé
Finir => J’ai fini
Vendre => J’ai vendu

There are also a few irregular verb patterns:

  • Faire, dire and other verbs in ire => it
  • Connaitre and other verbs in aitre => u
  • Venir and other verbs in enir => enu
  • Prendre and other verbs in -endre => pris

Some irregular verbs won’t match any of these patterns, if that’s the case, you need to look up the individual past participle conjugation.

Here are a few common irregular verbs to get you started:

Aller

Pronoun

Conjugation

Translation

Jesuis alléI went
Tues alléYou went
Il/elle/onest alléHe/she/it went
Noussommes allésWe went
Vousêtes allésYou went
Ils/ellessont allésThey went

Avoir

Pronoun

Conjugation

Translation

J’ai euI had
Tuas euYou had
Il/elle/ona euHe/she/it had
Nousavons euWe had
Vousavez euYou had
Ils/ellesont euThey had

Être

Pronoun

Conjugation

Translation

J’ai étéI was
Tuas étéYou were
Il/elle/ona étéHe/she/it was
Nousavons étéWe were
Vousavez étéYou were
Ils/ellesont étéThey were

Pouvoir

Pronoun

Conjugation

Translation

J’ai puI could
Tuas puYou could
Il/elle/ona puHe/she/it could
Nousavons puWe could
Vousavez puYou could
Ils/ellesont puThey could

#3 Make the verb agree in number and gender

Crowds of Party People Enjoying a Live Concert

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.

  • Je suis arrivé(e) => you add a e if the subject if female.
  • Ils sont arrivé(s) (you add a “s” is the subject is plural).
  • 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 grammar considers that male always wins.

There is, however, a growing number of people who refuse to follow (and even teach) this rule they consider sexist.

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 new conjugations, mistakes will rarely prevent you from being understood. In fact, the French regularly make mistakes when they use the passé composé.

Learn to conjugate avoir and être, focus on learning the most common patterns and you will be able to correctly conjugate verbs in the passé composé in the majority of cases.

Filed Under: French Grammar Tagged With: Intermediate French

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About Benjamin Houy

Benjamin Houy is a native French speaker and the founder of French Together. He helps English speakers learn the 20% of French they need to understand 80% of conversations and speak French with confidence.When he is not busy creating content for French Together, he can be found writing about copywriting on Copy Puzzle.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    Nancy

    January 3, 2019 at 5:55 pm

    Whenever I use the passé composé it is for me to express something that happened in the past and hasn’t happened again. . . or isn’t likely to reoccur. Whenever I use the imparfait, it’s for me to express an emotion (which can change minute by minute) or an action that continues to the present-day. If we listened better to people when they spoke, we’d be able to understand that their use of p.c. or imp. is personal also–what may be a one-time experience for me may be continual feelings or actions for another person. Language is dynamic and most of the time not static.

    Reply
  2. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    Joshua Lee

    October 22, 2018 at 9:28 am

    How do I know when an verb that ends with “-ir” should change to either “-i”, “-u”, “-ert”, or “-is”. I don’t see any patterns to this so it is really hard for me to understand and learn. Is there any particular rules to this? Not just the “-ir” verbs but all the other verbs as well.

    Reply
    • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

      khushi

      December 10, 2018 at 3:52 pm

      : for ir ending verbs we remove ir amd put a i
      : for er ending verbs we remove er and put è
      :for re ending verbs we remove re and put u
      There are some exceptions in each case too

      Reply
      • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

        Inspector

        January 3, 2019 at 5:47 pm

        -é not -è for -er verbs n the Perfect!!!
        Back to School with you!!!

        Reply
  3. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    gaby browne

    October 10, 2018 at 5:03 pm

    i really dont understand where you have to add an s,e,es ect.
    its reeeeeeealy confusing

    Reply
    • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

      ella

      October 24, 2018 at 3:23 pm

      For etre verbs, so mrs van der tramp. you just have to make the verb agree with the subject. for feminine it is an extra e, for masculine plural it is an extra s, for feminine plural it is an es.
      for example: she went= elle est allee
      they went (m)= ils sont alles
      they went (f)= elles sont allees

      Reply
    • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

      Epicilluminati (Jace)

      November 13, 2018 at 3:31 am

      Hey gaby, i have a test on this tmr lol. Studying late at night rn. Anyways:
      If the subject is plural –> add “s” to end of verb.
      Subject is female –> add “e” to end of verb.
      Subject is both plural AND female, add “es”.
      Hope this helps!
      btw this article will hopefully let me ace tmr’s test.
      >.<

      Reply
    • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

      miral

      November 19, 2018 at 9:54 pm

      well its really simple , you add e if the subject is female , and you add s if the subject is plural , and es if the subject is plural and female at the same time . so its all about the subject here ,

      for example : la tarte qu’elle mangée etait excellente
      tarte is the subject and its female so you add e to mangé,,
      translation : the tart she ate was excellent

      i hope it was helpful.

      Reply
  4. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    Jessica

    October 3, 2018 at 10:08 pm

    wow thank you! this has helped A LOT!!

    Reply
  5. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    Maryam K

    September 27, 2018 at 4:21 pm

    Hi!

    I was wondering what the rule is about adding the two s’s to the conjugation. I’m having a lot of trouble understanding it. Thank you!!!

    Reply
  6. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    Bob

    August 18, 2018 at 8:40 am

    Hi how do you know whether to use le passe compose or l’imparfait… As in, what is the difference between these two? Thanks

    Reply
    • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

      mac

      December 17, 2018 at 6:43 pm

      passe compose is used for quick actions or occurances that happened in the past. Imparfait is for things that happened over a long period of time or was habitual in the past.
      That’s why we use imparfait for past ages (because you were a certain age for a full year): “quand j’avais 15 ans.”

      Reply
  7. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    Jean

    March 5, 2018 at 10:22 pm

    It doesn’t seem as though you’ve mentioned that some verbs ending in aitre like naître have unusual past participles like né, née.

    Reply
    • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

      Jane

      November 10, 2018 at 8:12 pm

      I believe that naître is an irregular verbe, and it would have a different ending than connaître.

      Reply
  8. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    Kris Schneider

    March 5, 2018 at 6:38 pm

    You don’t need to know the passé simple? Nonsense. What if you want to read a book in French?

    That’s like saying you don’t need to know the subjonctif.

    Reply
    • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

      Benjamin Houy

      March 6, 2018 at 3:41 pm

      You are right, I should have given more context. What I meant is that most French learners don’t need to learn the passé composé because their only goal is to communicate with locals.

      I completely agree that it’s a useful tense to know to read books. I actually updated the article to reflect that :).

      Reply
  9. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    Harvey

    January 22, 2018 at 5:53 pm

    Im so excited to learn any of the french lessons… but sometimes im just feeling confused of them… and i couldnt even ask anyone about it… i have completely understood even after reading such a very helpful article… i didnt really understand when to add the ” e ” after le passé composé which is using ” Avoir ” as the helping verbs… and now i already understood tho..merci beaucoup pour votre aide monsier Ben… je l’apprecie beaucoup :))

    Reply
  10. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    michael fox

    November 23, 2017 at 5:57 am

    I don’t think that “je suis fatigué” is an example of the passé composé

    Reply
    • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

      Benjamin Houy

      November 23, 2017 at 9:59 am

      Thanks Michael, it’s corrected.

      Reply
  11. Avatar for Benjamin Houy

    Kathryn

    November 22, 2017 at 2:59 am

    This is an important lesson for people. I feel as though I always know what I want to say, but can’t because I haven’t mastered the passé composé.

    Reply
    • Avatar for Benjamin Houy

      Benjamin Houy

      November 22, 2017 at 11:35 am

      I hope this lesson helped you :).

      Reply

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