French Tenses.

The passé composé is the most common French past tense, often used in conjunction with the imperfect. The passé composé can express any of the following:

• An action completed in the past

  • E.g. Ils ont déjà mangé – they have already eaten

• An action repeated a number of times in the past

  • E.g. Oui, j'ai mangé cinq fois hier – Yes, I did eat five times yesterday

• A series of actions completed in the past

  • E.g. Samedi, il a vu sa mère, a parlé au médicin et a trouvé un chat – On Saturday, he saw his mother, talked to the doctor, and found a cat.

 

The passé composé is a compound conjugation, which means it has two parts:

• Present tense of the auxiliary verb (either avoir or être)

• Past participle of the main verb

 

Like all compound conjugations, the passé composé may be subject to grammatical agreement:

• When the auxiliary verb is être, the past participle must agree with the subject

• When the auxiliary verb is avoir, the past participle may have to agree with its direct object

 

To conjugate:

Present tense of auxiliary verb + past participle of the second verb