The Passé Composé
The passé composé is how French talks about finished events. It's built from two pieces — a helper verb and a past participle — and choosing the right helper is the whole game.
Get this and you can suddenly describe your entire life instead of only your present moment.
Vocabulary
- j'ai mangé
- I ate / I have eaten
- j'ai fait
- I did / I made
- j'ai vu
- I saw
- j'ai dit
- I said
- je suis allé(e)
- I went
- je suis parti(e)
- I left
- je suis resté(e)
- I stayed
- hier
- yesterday
- hier soir
- last night
- la semaine dernière
- last week
- déjà
- already
- ne … jamais
- never
Example Phrases
Hier, j'ai mangé au restaurant.
Yesterday I ate at a restaurant.
Qu'est-ce que tu as fait ce week-end ?
What did you do this weekend?
Je suis allé au cinéma.
I went to the cinema.
Elle est partie très tôt.
She left very early.
Je n'ai rien dit.
I didn't say anything.
Grammar note
Avoir or être?
Most verbs take avoir: j'ai mangé, j'ai vu, j'ai fait. A small closed set takes être instead — mostly verbs of movement and change of state: aller, venir, partir, arriver, entrer, sortir, monter, descendre, rester, tomber, naître, mourir, and their compounds.
All reflexive verbs also take être: je me suis levé, elle s'est couchée.
Grammar note
With être, the participle agrees
When the helper is être, the past participle agrees with the subject like an adjective: il est allé, elle est allée, ils sont allés, elles sont allées.
With avoir there's no agreement with the subject at all: elle a mangé, never elle a mangée. This is the single most common written error French learners make, and it's usually silent in speech — which is exactly why it survives so long.