Le passé composé

Le passé composé

regular verbs​

By Nathalie Saint-Martin

What is the Perfect Tense?

​

The perfect tense is used to describe an action that happened in the past. 

There is more than one way to translate the perfect tense into English:

​

​ J’ai mangé une banane = I ate a banana. or = I have eaten a banana.

​How do you form the perfect tense?

​

You need two parts. Most verbs use the present tense of avoir + the past participle of the main verb:

​Present tense of avoir + past participle = Perfect tense

Subject | Subject

Some text here about the topic of discussion

​To make the past participle you need to take the infinitive of the verb and change the ending.

• ​If the infinitive ends in –er, take off the -er and add –é:

  voyager = voyagé

• If the infinitive ends in –ir, take off the –ir and add –i:

  choisir = choisi

• ​If the infinitive ends in –re, take off the –re and add –u:

  perdre = perdu​

​Formation

​Example

How do you form the past participle?

​pronoun	​auxiliary	​past participle
​J'	​ai	​voyagé
​tu	​as	​voyagé
​il/elle/on	​a	​voyagé
​nous	​avons	​voyagé
​vous	​avez	​voyagé
​ils/elles	​ont	​voyagé

First revise and practise the auxiliary avoir

​Watch this video and sing along!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puUFkMr_GyU

Multiple Choice

Elle ............... voyagé

• ai

• as

• a

• avons

Multiple Choice

J' ............... logé

• ai

• as

• a

• avons

Multiple Choice

Nous ............... visité

• ai

• as

• a

• avons

Multiple Choice

On ............... mangé

• ai

• as

• a

• avons

Multiple Choice

Tu ............... joué

• ai

• as

• a

• avons

Now let's see if you remember the endings of the past participles.

Multiple Choice

J'ai (visiter)

• visité

• visiti

• visitu

• visite

Multiple Choice

J'ai (nager)

• nagé

• nagi

• nagu

• nage

Multiple Choice

J'ai (perdre)

• perdé

• perdi

• perdu

• perds

Multiple Choice

J'ai (finir)

• finé

• fini

• finu

• finis

Multiple Choice

J'ai (manger)

• mangé

• mangi

• mangu

• mange

Multiple Choice

J'ai (passer)

• passé

• passi

• passu

• passe

Multiple Choice

J'ai (choisir)

• choisé

• choisi

• choisu

• choisis

Multiple Choice

J'ai (attendre)

• attendé

• attendi

• attendu

• attends

Now let's do the whole verb