passé composé - Petal School District

Point de départ In Leçon 6A, you learned to form the passé composé with avoir. Some verbs, however, form the passé composé with être.

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7A.1-1

To form the passé composé of these verbs, use a present-tense form of être and the past participle of the verb that expresses the action.

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7A.1-2

Many of the verbs that take être in the passé composé, involve motion. You have already learned a few of them: aller, arriver, descendre, partir, passer, rentrer, sortir, and tomber.

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7A.1-3

The past participles of verbs conjugated with être agree with their subjects in number and gender.

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To make a verb negative in the passé composé, place ne/n’ and pas around the auxiliary verb, in this case, être.

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Here are a few more verbs that take être instead of avoir in the passé composé.

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7A.1-6

Note that the verb passer takes être when it means to pass by, but it takes avoir when it means to spend time.

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To form a question using inversion in the passé composé, invert the subject pronoun and the conjugated form of être.

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7A.1-8

Place short adverbs such as déjà, encore, bien, mal, and beaucoup between the auxiliary verb être or pas and the past participle.

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7A.1-9

Essayez!

Choisissez le participe passé approprié.

1. Vous êtes (nés/né) en 1959, Monsieur?

2. Les élèves sont (partis/parti) le 2 juin. 3. Les filles sont (rentrées/rentrés) de vacances. 4. Simone de Beauvoir est-elle (mort/morte) en 1986? 5. Mes frères sont (sortis/sortie). 6. Paul n’est pas (resté/restée) chez sa grand-mère. 7. Tu es (arrivés/arrivée) avant dix heures, Sophie. 8. Jacqueline a (passée/passé) une semaine en Suisse.

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