Une porte fermée: French past participles as adjectives
See fermé, ouvert, écrit and cassé describe everyday objects. Compare all four agreement forms, then choose the ending each noun needs.
In short
A past participle used as an adjective agrees with its noun: un sac fermé, une porte fermée, des sacs fermés, des portes fermées. First learn the participle, then add the adjective endings.
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How does a past participle agree as an adjective?
| Base | Masculine singular | Feminine singular | Masculine plural | Feminine plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| fermer → fermé | fermé | fermée | fermés | fermées |
| écrire → écrit | écrit | écrite | écrits | écrites |
| ouvrir → ouvert | ouvert | ouverte | ouverts | ouvertes |
| surprendre → surpris | surpris | surprise | surpris | surprises |
The masculine base surpris already ends in -s, so the masculine plural stays surpris. With écrit, the feminine écrite makes the final consonant audible. The written plural -s is usually silent in these forms.
Two participles in one sentence
Elle a fermé les fenêtres ouvertes.
She closed the open windows.
Fermé belongs to a fermé. Ouvertes describes fenêtres.
The object les fenêtres follows a fermé, so fermé stays unchanged. The adjective ouvertes agrees with the feminine plural noun it describes. In Les fenêtres sont fermées, the participle also agrees with fenêtres; the sentence can describe their closed condition.
Nous avons gardé les réponses écrites.
We kept the written answers.
Écrites describes the answers. Gardé is part of the verb group.