french

G: Perfect Tenses
You will be learning several new perfect tenses in this level. Review the grammar behind them. This time,
make sure you know all the rules.
The perfect tenses are also called the compound or composed tenses.
The perfect tenses are all composed of a conjugated auxillary verb and a fixed past participle.
Auxillary Verb Formation
The auxillary verb is always either avoir or être.
The tense of the verb depends upon the tense that avoir or être is conjugated in.
When the auxillary verb is conjugated in the passé composé, for example, the auxillary verb is
conjugated in the present indicative.
J'ai fini. - I have finished.
Past Participle Formation
-er verbs - replace -er with é
-ir verbs - replace -ir with i
-re verbs - replace -re with u
irregular verbs - must be memorized
Past Participle Agreement
Audio: French native speaker
The past participle must agree with the direct object of a clause in gender and plurality if the direct
object goes before the verb.
the direct object is masculine singular - no change
J'ai fini le jeu. - I have finished the game.
Je l'ai fini. - I have finished it.
the direct object is feminine singular - add an e to the past participle
J'ai fini la tâche. - I have finished the task.
Je l'ai finie. - I have finished it.
the direct object is masculine plural - add an s to the past participle.
J'ai fini les jeux. - I have finished the games.
Je les ai finis. - I have finished them.
the direct object is feminine plural - add an es to the past participle.
J'ai fini les tâches. - I have finished the tasks.
Je les ai finies. - I have finished them.
Avoir ou Être?
In most circumstances, the auxillary verb is avoir.
However, under certain situations, the auxillary verb is être.
This occurs when:
The verb is one of 16 special verbs that take être.
Note that when a direct object is used with these verbs, the auxillary verb becomes avoir.
The verb is reflexive.
That is, the subject of the verb is also its object.