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This is the first sentence our professor told us, a group of French college
students, as we were about to take an exam.
“Most French college students don’t know how to use the passé simple
properly”, he went on.
My professor was right. Most French people don’t know how to use the passé
simple properly because they rarely need to use it.
This is great news for you as a French learner, because it means you probably
don’t need to bother learning this complicated tense.
if your only goal is to communicate with locals, you only need to know
two French past tenses: le passé composé and l’imparfait.
Today’s article will show you when and how to use the passé composé! You
will see, it’s not that complicated!
Contents [hide]
1 When should you use the passé composé?
2 How to conjugate verbs in the passé composé tense
o 2.1 #1 Choose your helping verb
o 2.2 Conjugation
o 2.3 Translation
o 2.4 Conjugation
o 2.5 Translation
o 2.6 #2 Add the past participle
o 2.7 Pronoun
o 2.8 Conjugation
o 2.9 Translation
o 2.10 Pronoun
o 2.11 Conjugation
o 2.12 Translation
o 2.13 Pronoun
o 2.14 Conjugation
o 2.15 Translation
o 2.16 Pronoun
o 2.17 Conjugation
o 2.18 Translation
o 2.19 #3 Make the verb agree in number and gender
o 2.20 Voulez-vous parler français ?
The bad news is that French people use several past tenses.
The good news is that le passé composé is the most common tense and
that you can already express yourself well if it’s the only French past
tense you know.
You use it to highlight the consequences of past actions and to talk about:
Completed actions.
Repeated actions.
Series of actions.
Conditions in likely situations.
Once you know the verb you want to conjugate in the passé composé uses
“avoir”, you simply need to conjugate avoir in the present tense and add the
past participle.
Conjugation Translation
J’ai I have
Tu as You have
Être
Être is less common than “avoir” as a helping verb but a few common French
verbs use it when conjugated in the passé composé.
An easy way to remember some of these verbs is to use the Dr and Mrs
Vandertrampp mnemonics.
Devenir
Revenir
Mourir
Retourner
Sortir
Venir
Arriver
Naitre
Descendre
Entrer
Rentrer
Tomber
Rester
Aller
Monter
Partir
Passer
Once you know the verb you want to conjugate in the passé composé uses
être, it’s time to conjugate être in the present tense
Conjugation Translation
Je suis I am
Tu es You are
Once you know what helping verb to use, all you need to do is add the past
participle of the verb you want to conjugate.
The majority of French verbs are regular and forming their past participle is
easy.
Some irregular verbs won’t match any of these patterns, if that’s the case, you
need to look up the individual past participle conjugation.
Aller
Avoir
J’ ai eu I had
Tu as eu You had
Être
J’ ai été I was
Pouvoir
J’ ai pu I could
Tu as pu You could
If the subject is a group of 10 women and 1 man, you are supposed to act as if
the entire group was male because French grammar considers that male
always wins.
There is, however, a growing number of people who refuse to follow (and
even teach) this rule they consider sexist.
Here you can say, she ate what? The tart. Since tart comes before the verb
and is female, you need to agree in number and add a “e” to mangé.
While it takes a while to get used to all these new conjugations, mistakes will
rarely prevent you from being understood. In fact, the French regularly make
mistakes when they use the passé composé.
Learn to conjugate avoir and être, focus on learning the most common
patterns and you will be able to correctly conjugate verbs in the passé
composé in the majority of cases.