Passé Composé AVOIR

Basic Formation The past tense in French is a COMPOUND tense, meaning it has 2 parts to the verb. It is not a simple tense, like present, that only has one part to the verb (EX: je regarde). The past tense, passé composé, is composed of a conjugation of avoir (this is called the auxillary or helping verb) plus a past participle.

Auxillary Verb – Avoir STEP ONE Do you remember the forms of avoir? J’ai Tu as Il/elle/on a Nous avons Vous avez Ils/elles ont

Past Participle – REGULAR VERBS STEP 2 1. For verbs ending in –er, to make a past participle, drop the –r and add an accent aigu to the e (é) EX: regarder  regardé 2. For verbs that end in –ir, simply drop the –r. - EX: finir  fini 3. For verbs that end in –re, drop the –re and add u. EX: perdre  perdu

EXAMPLES We watched TV last night. Nous avons regardé la télé hier soir. He finished his homework. Il a fini ses devoirs. I lost the game. J’ai perdu le match.

NEGATION To make a past tense verb negative, put ne…pas or any other negative expression around the verb, which in past tense is the form of AVOIR. EX: j’ai fini Je ai fini n’ pas

Question Formation Questions in the past tense can be done in 3 ways: 1. Intonation – write it as a statement, but your voice goes up at the end to ask the question: EX: Tu as fini tes devoirs?

Est-ce que 2. Use est-ce que at the beginning of your sentence: Est-ce que tu as fini tes devoirs?

Inversion 3. Inversion – this is most common in speech. Invert (flip-flop) the subject and the verb (form of avoir) EX: fini tes devoirs (statement) Inversion – tu as - fini tes devoirs?

Inversion NOTE: In the il/elle/on forms, insert a –t- between the form of avoir and the subject for pronunciation reasons (2 vowels together) EX: A-t-elle fini ses devoirs? A-t-il fini ses devoirs? A-t-on fini nos devoirs?