The passé composé in French: forms, uses and examples

Build the passé composé with a present-tense auxiliary and a past participle. The auxiliary changes for the subject; the participle supplies the main action. In nous avons regardé, avons tells you who is acting and regardé identifies the action. Both pieces are necessary. The fact that the auxiliary is present in form does not make the whole verb group a present-tense statement.

Keep the compound tense separate from two verbs with an infinitive. Je vais regarder means “I am going to watch”; j’ai regardé means “I watched” or “I have watched”. After the passé composé auxiliary, you need a participle, not an infinitive. Accents distinguish regardé from regarder in writing even though they normally sound alike.

The main regular past-participle patterns are -er → -é, finir-type -ir → -i and vendre-type -re → -u. Use these as starting patterns, then learn frequent irregular participles with their infinitives. An infinitive ending does not guarantee a regular participle: prendre gives pris, and venir gives venu. Learning a short sentence with each form helps you remember its auxiliary too.

Do not add an English-style ending to a French stem. Memorise fait, dit, vu and pris as complete forms. Notice also that the passé composé of être uses avoir: j’ai été, not je suis été. The participle drill in the related pages lets you practise recall without adding all the word-order decisions at once.

Use avoir with most verbs, including many verbs of movement such as marcher, courir and voyager. Use être with a particular group of verbs in their intransitive uses, including aller, venir, arriver, partir, entrer, sortir, rester, tomber, naître and mourir, and with pronominal verbs. Learn the construction rather than treating movement as a universal test.

Some verbs change auxiliary with their construction. Monter and descendre, like sortir, can take avoir when used with a direct object: j’ai descendu les cartons. This does not mean every verb with être has an everyday transitive counterpart. First learn the common paired examples, then check the construction of a new verb in context.

With the non-pronominal être verbs in this guide, the participle agrees with the subject in gender and number. With avoir, it normally stays unchanged when the direct object follows the verb, but agrees with a direct object placed before it. Pronominal verbs use être too, yet their agreement requires checking the role of the reflexive pronoun.

For singular polite vous, the auxiliary remains êtes, but agreement refers to the one person addressed: Madame, vous êtes arrivée. For plural vous, add the appropriate plural ending. With avoir, do not make the participle agree just because the subject is feminine: a woman says j’ai mangé. The related agreement pages cover preceding objects and reflexive constructions in more detail.

Use the passé composé for events, changes and situations presented as bounded wholes. It can tell a sequence, report one occurrence, give an experience or sum up a finished period. A completed whole can last a second or many years. The tense does not say that every result has disappeared: j’ai perdu mes clés can explain why you cannot open the door now.

The time period containing an event need not be over: “this week” can still be current. What matters is that you are presenting the sending of three applications as accomplished events. For a state or action viewed in progress at a past moment, use the imparfait: je préparais une candidature quand elle a appelé. English “have” is therefore a clue to meaning, not a requirement in the translation.

Put ne…pas around the auxiliary, and place an object or reflexive pronoun before that auxiliary in an ordinary statement. Common short adverbs such as déjà, bien and beaucoup often go between auxiliary and participle. A time phrase such as hier soir commonly goes at the beginning or end of the clause. Learn these as complete sentence patterns.

In a yes/no question, est-ce que lets you keep statement order: est-ce que vous avez répondu ? With inversion, invert the auxiliary and subject pronoun: avez-vous répondu ? The participle stays after them. Compare l’avez-vous vu ? with vous l’avez vu ?: both ask whether you saw him, with a different question frame.

Check whether you are presenting the whole event or looking inside the situation before choosing the tense. In a story, the imparfait often establishes the surroundings and the passé composé tells what happened next. A verb is not permanently assigned to one tense. J’étais malade describes a state at a past point; j’ai été malade pendant trois jours sums up a bounded episode.

Practise the form separately if you know the intended event but hesitate over the auxiliary or participle. Practise the comparison if your forms are secure but the viewpoint is unclear. The related library pages include both kinds of work, along with a completed-day sequence and a quiz.

The common errors are omitting one of the two verb parts, using an infinitive after the auxiliary, choosing être for every movement verb and overgeneralising agreement. Read the auxiliary, participle and any object as one group before checking the rest of the sentence.

• Hier, je regardé un film.Hier, j’ai regardé un film.

  The passé composé needs an auxiliary as well as a participle.

• Nous avons finir.Nous avons fini.

  After avons, use the participle fini, not the infinitive.

• Je suis voyagé en train.J’ai voyagé en train.

  Voyager takes avoir even though it describes travel.

• Elles ont mangées.Elles ont mangé.

  Avoir does not cause agreement with the subject.

• Elle est arrivé.Elle est arrivée.

  With arriver and être, the participle agrees with the feminine singular subject.