Verb drill
Irregular French past participles: a 16-answer drill
Practise pris, fait, vu and écrit, then use irregular participles in eight complete sentences. Check accents, auxiliaries and agreement with venue.
- A2
- 16 answers
- Checked all at once
- Accents count
- Learn this in the A2 notebook →
In short
Learn the participle with a usable phrase: prendre → pris → j’ai pris le train. In the passé composé, put it after the right auxiliary: j’ai vu, nous avons fait, elle est venue. Complete eight forms and eight sentences below; accents count.
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| Verb | Participle | Related verbs |
|---|---|---|
| prendre | pris | apprendre → appris ; comprendre → compris |
| mettre | mis | permettre → permis ; promettre → promis |
| ouvrir | ouvert | offrir → offert |
1 · Write the past participle of each verb
- prendre
- faire
- voir
- écrire
- lire
- boire
- dire
- mettre
2 · Complete each sentence with the past participle
- Tu as une nouvelle expression. (apprendre)
- Nous avons la question. (comprendre)
- J’ai la fenêtre. (ouvrir)
- J’ai changer de train. (devoir)
- Vous avez mon message ? (recevoir)
- Léa est avec nous. (venir · agree with Léa)
- Nous avons malades pendant le voyage. (être)
- Elles ont peur. (avoir)
What are the irregular past participles in French?
The final letters are part of each form: pris and mis end in s; fait, dit and écrit end in t; vu, lu and bu have neither. The infinitive’s ending alone is a poor guide: ouvrir gives ouvert, while finir gives fini.
Do irregular participles take avoir or être?
Léa est venue avec nous.
Léa came with us.
Venir uses être. The participle agrees with Léa, so venu becomes venue.
Léa a eu peur, puis elle a été malade.
Léa got scared, then she was ill.
Avoir and être both use avoir in their own passé composé: a eu, a été. The feminine subject adds no ending here.
With avoir, the participle agrees with a direct object placed before it. In the drill, the objects follow the participle, as in tu as appris une expression, so keep the base form. Compare l’expression que tu as apprise: the feminine object is now before as apprise.
Two small marks to keep
- J’ai du partir.J’ai dû partir.
The masculine singular participle of devoir is dû, with a circumflex. The next verb, partir, stays in the infinitive.
- Vous avez recu mon message ?Vous avez reçu mon message ?
Keep the cedilla in reçu. It preserves the /s/ sound before u.
Try the sentence part once more with a different subject. Vous avez reçu mon message ? becomes Tu as reçu mon message ? The auxiliary changes; reçu stays the same in these two sentences. For venir, check both parts: Léa est venue becomes Léa et Nora sont venues.