Le passé composé avec avoir
Until now you've lived in the present. Today: the everyday past. French builds it like English's perfect tense — a helper verb plus a past participle: j'ai parlé = I have spoken / I spoke. Most verbs use avoir as the helper, and that's all of this lesson. The few that use être instead come next time.
The pattern: avoir + past participle
Conjugate avoir in the present, then add the past participle of your verb. j'ai parlé = I spoke / I have spoken. tu as parlé, il a parlé, nous avons parlé, vous avez parlé, ils ont parlé. Same helper, same participle — only avoir changes. One French form covers both 'I spoke' and 'I have spoken' — context decides.
Forming the past participle: regular verbs
Three patterns by infinitive ending. -er verbs → -é: parler → parlé, manger → mangé, regarder → regardé, aimer → aimé, travailler → travaillé. -ir verbs → -i: finir → fini, choisir → choisi, dormir → dormi. -re verbs → -u: vendre → vendu, attendre → attendu, entendre → entendu. So j'ai mangé une pomme = I ate an apple, nous avons fini = we finished, ils ont vendu la maison = they sold the house.
The irregulars you'll meet every day
A handful of common verbs have unpredictable participles — memorize them as units. avoir → eu (had); être → été (been); faire → fait (done/made); voir → vu (seen); prendre → pris (taken); mettre → mis (put); dire → dit (said); écrire → écrit (written); lire → lu (read); boire → bu (drunk); vouloir → voulu (wanted); pouvoir → pu (been able); comprendre → compris (understood). So j'ai eu peur = I was scared, elle a fait un gâteau = she made a cake, nous avons vu Paul = we saw Paul.
Negation: ne … pas wraps the helper
ne and pas sandwich avoir, NOT the participle. Je n'ai pas parlé = I didn't speak. Tu n'as pas mangé? = You didn't eat? Il n'a pas vu le film = He didn't see the movie. The participle stays at the end, untouched. Same logic for any reflexive or object pronoun — they cling to the helper: Je ne l'ai pas vu = I didn't see him.
Time markers that signal the past
hier (yesterday), hier soir (last night), avant-hier (the day before yesterday), la semaine dernière (last week), le mois dernier (last month), l'année dernière (last year), il y a deux jours (two days ago — yes, il y a also means 'ago'), déjà (already — slots between avoir and the participle: j'ai déjà mangé), ne … jamais (never: je n'ai jamais vu = I've never seen).
Word order and questions
Statement: subject + avoir + participle. Question with rising tone: Tu as mangé? Question with est-ce que: Est-ce que tu as mangé? Both are common. Inversion (formal): As-tu mangé? — helper and subject swap, joined by a hyphen. Question words come first: Qu'est-ce que tu as fait hier? = What did you do yesterday?
