Passé composé


The passé composé is the most used 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 time in the past. The passé composé originally corresponded in function to the English present perfect, but is now used mainly as the equivalent of the simple past.
The passé composé is formed using an auxiliary verb and the past participle of a verb.

Conjugation

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.
The passé composé is usually translated into English as a simple past tense, "I saw", or as a present perfect, "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.

Auxiliary ''avoir''

The auxiliary verb is typically avoir ‘to have’, but is sometimes être ‘to be’.
This is the conjugation of avoir, with a past participle:
j’ai vu nous avons vu
tu as vu vous avez vu
il/elle/on a vu ils/elles ont vu /they

Auxiliary ''être''

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:
je suis mort nous sommes morts
tu es mort vous êtes morts
il/elle/on est mort he/it died, ils/elles sont morts
The following is a list of verbs that use être as their auxiliary verbs in passé composé:
The above are commonly remembered using the acronym DR and MRS VANDERTRAMP. In addition to these, at least one other verb is 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’, or as a dative form e.g. Je me suis donné du temps.

Formation of French past participles

To form the past participle for first-group verbs and aller too, drop the -er and add .
parler - er + é = parlé
arriver - er + é = arrivé
manger - er + é = mangé
To form the past participle for second-group verbs, drop the -ir and add -i.
finir - ir + i = fini
choisir - ir + i = choisi
grandir - ir + i = grandi
To form the past participle for third-group verbs, drop the -re and add -u.
pendre - re + u = pendu
vendre - re + u = vendu
entendre - re + u = entendu
attendre - re + u = attendu
acquérir: acquis
apprendre: appris
atteindre: atteint
avoir: eu
boire: bu
comprendre: compris
conduire: conduit
connaître: connu
construire: construit
courir: couru
couvrir: couvert
craindre: craint
croire: cru
décevoir: déçu
découvrir: découvert
devoir:
dire: dit
écrire: écrit
être: été
faire: fait
instruire: instruit
joindre: joint
lire: lu
mettre: mis
offrir: offert
ouvrir: ouvert
paraître: paru
peindre: peint
pouvoir: pu
prendre: pris
produire: produit
recevoir: reçu
savoir: su
souffrir: souffert
surprendre: surpris
suivre: suivi
tenir: tenu
venir: venu
vivre: vécu
voir: vu
vouloir: voulu

Agreement between participle and object

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.
Examples :
For more information, see French verbs, and see :fr:Accord du participe passé en français|Accord du participe passé en français for complete details