The perfect tense: a complete example

On the previous page, we mentioned that the perfect tense in French generally carries the meaning of I have ...ed or I ...ed, and that it is generally formed as follows:

We mentioned that there are a few complications. But for now, let's look at a worked example of the general formula we've just mentioned.

Present tense of avoir

Recall that the present tense of avoir is as follows:

Past participle

The past participle is the equivalent form to words ending in -en or -ed in English: eaten, walked, climbed, broken etc. In English, there is a regular pattern: most verbs have their past participles ending in -ed. But there are some irregularities (sing has sung, not singed).

In French, there is a comparable situation: a regular rule, for regualr -er verbs, plus some other minor rules and irregularities. For now, we'll concentrate on the regular rule:

So that gives past participles such as the following:

Note that the past participle generally sounds the same as the infinitive for regular -er verbs.

Example perfect tense forms

Now, to make the perfect tense, we need to combine entries from the previous two tables.

What to read next

Once you're happy with forming the perfect tense of -er verbs, here are some other things to look at:

• Forming the past participle (and thus the perfect tense) of other verbs.
• A few verbs use être rather than avoir. See: when to use avoir and être.
• past participle agreement: sometimes the form of the past participle has to "agree" with the subject.

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