The French: '''passé composé''' (in French pronounced as /pase kɔ̃poze/;) is a past tense in the modern French language. It is used to express an action that has been finished completely or incompletely at the time of speech, or at some (possibly unknown) time in the past. It originally corresponded in function to the English present perfect, but now there is a tendency to use it for all completed actions in the past as the equivalent of the simple past. Its current usage corresponds fairly closely to that of the Latin perfect tense. It is formed using an auxiliary verb and the past participle of a verb.
In British teaching of French, the French: passé composé is usually known as the perfect tense.
The passé composé is formed by the auxiliary verb, usually the avoir auxiliary, followed by the past participle. The construction is parallel to that of the present perfect (there is no difference in French between perfect and non-perfect forms - although there is an important difference in usage between the perfect tense and the imperfect tense).
The passé composé is usually translated into English as a simple past tense, "I saw", or as a present perfect would be, "I have seen". It could also be translated as emphatic past tense, "I did see".
The auxiliary may actually be used similarly in any tense, leading to the French compound tenses.
The auxiliary verb is typically avoir 'to have', but is sometimes être 'to be' (see below).
This is the conjugation of avoir, with a past participle:
The verbs that use être as an auxiliary verb are intransitive verbs that usually indicate motion or change of state.
Since some of these verbs can be used as a transitive verb as well, they will instead take avoir as an auxiliary in those instances; e.g.
Sortir, monter, descendre, entrer, retourner, and passer all have transitive and intransitive uses.
This is the conjugation of être, with a past participle:
The following is a list of verbs that use être (for intransitive usage) as their auxiliary verbs in passé composé:
The above have been remembered using the mnemonic acronym DR and MRS VANDERTRAMP. (Other teaching methods have been used. An alternative version of the mnemonic acronym adds a final "P" (as ...TRAMPP), to account for "passer" in the following section of "additional" être-conjugated verbs. Language evolution with time poses a challenge for this approach.)
In addition to these, at least two other verbs are conjugated with être:
In addition to the above verbs, all reflexive/pronominal verbs use être as their auxiliary verb. A reflexive/pronominal verb is one that relates back to the speaker, either as an object e.g. Je me suis trompé 'I'm mistaken, I made a mistake' (= *j'ai trompé moi-même, literally 'I fooled myself'), or as a dative form e.g. Je me suis donné du temps (= *j'ai donné du temps à moi-même, 'I gave myself some time').
To form the past participle for first-group verbs (-ER verbs) and aller too, drop the -er and add -é.
parler (to speak) - er + é = parlé (spoken) arriver (to arrive) - er + é = arrivé (arrived) manger (to eat) - er + é = mangé (eaten)
To form the past participle for second-group verbs (-IR verbs with -ISSANT gerund), drop the -ir and add -i.
finir (to finish) - ir + i = fini (finished) choisir (to choose) - ir + i = choisi (chosen) grandir (to grow up) - ir + i = grandi (grown up)
To form the past participle for third-group verbs (-RE verbs), drop the -re and add -u.
pendre (to hang) - re + u = pendu (hung or sometimes hanged) vendre (to sell) - re + u = vendu (sold) entendre (to hear) - re + u = entendu (heard) attendre (to wait) - re + u = attendu (waited)
acquérir: acquis (acquired) apprendre: appris (learnt/learned) atteindre: atteint (attained) avoir: eu (had) boire: bu (drunk/drunken) comprendre: compris (understood) conduire: conduit (driven) connaître: connu (known) construire: construit (constructed) courir: couru (run) couvrir: couvert (covered) craindre: craint (feared) croire: cru (believed) décevoir: déçu (disappointed) découvrir: découvert (discovered) devoir: dû (had to) dire: dit (said) écrire: écrit (written) être: été (been) faire: fait (done) instruire: instruit (prepared) joindre: joint (joined) lire: lu (read) mettre: mis (put, placed) offrir: offert (offered) ouvrir: ouvert (opened) paraître: paru (resembled) peindre: peint (painted) pouvoir: pu (been able to) prendre: pris (taken) produire: produit (produced) recevoir: reçu (received) rire: ri (laughed) savoir: su (known) souffrir: souffert (hurt) surprendre: surpris (surprised) suivre: suivi (followed) tenir: tenu (held, holden) venir: venu (come) vivre: vécu (lived) voir: vu (seen) vouloir: voulu (wanted)
The use of the past participle in compound tenses in French is complicated by occasional "agreement" with the object of the action.In French, agreement is accomplished by adding an -e to the end of the past participle if the grammatical gender of the subject or direct object in question is feminine and an -s if it is plural. (Note that for verbs of the first and second group, the past participle ends with a vowel, thus the masculine and feminine, singular and plural forms are all pronounced the same. Within the third-group verbs, one can find past participles ending with a mute consonant, such as mis and fait, and those do change pronunciation.)
Examples :
NB: agreement, s is needed in that case, because of the être auxiliary - the meaning (and construction) is that of a predicative expression in that case.
NB: agreement of venues, see above.
NB : an extra e would be required if nous refers to a group of females - see above.
NB - agreement needed in that case, referring to the car (the object materialized by " l' " is mentioned before the participle - see Accord du participe passé en français for details).
que relative to Les voitures, implies that the participle is feminine plural in that case (les voitures sont vues).
que relative to l'erreur, feminine singular)
For more information, see French verbs, and .