Reminder:
To form the perfect tense in French, you need three parts: subject + auxiliary + past participle.
Part 2: the auxiliary is either avoir or être. Most verbs use avoir, verbs called 'Mrs Vandertramp verbs', generally verbs of movement, use être.
Part 3: the past participle:
- for ER verbs remove the ER and add - é
- for IR verbs just remove the R, ends in -i
- for RE verbs remove ER and add -u
There are a few irregular past participles such as fait (done), vu (seen), écrit (written) that have to be learnt by heart.
Ex: J'ai mangé un steak = I ate / have eaten a steak.
Ex: Nous avons vu un film au cinéma = We saw / have seen a film at the cinema.
When using verbs which require être, the past participle agrees with the subject. So if the subject is feminine, you would add an extra -e on the past participle, an -s if it is a plural masculine subject and -es if it is a plural feminine subject. Look at the following examples:
Ex: Caroline est allée au cinéma hier soir. = Caroline went to the cinema last night.
Ex: Nous sommes partis à sept heures. = We left at seven.
Ex: Elles sont venues à la fête. They came to the party.
Test your understanding below with a quick starter question!