Le passé composé

(avec avoir)

What is it?The passé composé is a past

tense in French. It is a compound tense, which means it is made up of two verbs. You need an auxiliary verb in the present tense and the participe passé (past participle) of the main verb. For most verbs, the auxiliary verb is avoir.

To form the participe passéDrop the last two letters of

the infinitive and add…-er >é -ir >i -re >u

parler finirvendre

parlé fini vendu

Conjugation of parler in the passé composé

avoirj’ai

tu asil, elle, on anous avonsvous avez

ils, elles ont

participe passéparléparléparléparléparléparlé

Translations (3 ways)

J’ai parlé. = I spoke. I did speak. I have spoken.

Elle a attendu. = ?

Negation

Negative words go around the auxiliary verb.

Il n’a pas joué.He didn’t play./He hasn’t played.

Tu n’as pas fini.You didn’t finish./You haven’t finished.

Questions

Est-ce que: (normal word order) Est-ce qu’il a joué?

Did he play?Quand est-ce que tu as fini?

When did you finish?

Inversion: (invert auxiliary verb and subject, add -)

Quand as-tu fini?When did you finish?A-t-il* joué?Did he play?* Add –t- when inverting il/elle/on

form of avoir

Negative inversion: (ne…pas goes around auxiliary verb and the subject)

N’a-t-il pas joué?Didn’t he play?N’as-tu pas fini?Didn’t you finish?

Remember…

1. The passé composé has TWO verbs: auxiliary verb (avoir) and participe passé.

2. The participe passé always comes after the auxiliary verb.