Passé Composé/Adverb endings (é/ée etc.)

In French, a lot of people get confused with when to put 'é' or 'ée' at the end of either a passé composé or as an adverb:

'elle a décidé de lui dire la vérité' / 'la vérité est ce qu'elle a décidée de lui dire'

'elle est tenté par la visite' / 'la visite l'a tentée'

Especially when the subject is female, people struggle to decide if and when the feminine ending should be used in a clause. Generally, in the passé composé, all the conjugated endings tend to be a single 'é' because the verb ending tends not to agree with the subject - the 'ée' is used almost solely for the COD of the sentence, and agrees with that. 

The same applies for irregular verbs and adverbs;

that end in 'u' or 'ue' such as:

recevoir, savoir, boire, devoire, connaître, lire, voir, pleuvoir, vouloir, pouvoir, croire

reçu/ue, su/ue, bu/ue, du/ue, connu/ue, lu/ue, vu/ue, plu/ue, voulu/ue, pu/ue, cru/ue

Or that end in 'is' or 'ise'

mettre, prendre

mis/ise, pris/ise

Or in 'it' or 'ite'

écrire, dire, conduire

écrit/ite, dit/ite, conduit/ite

and the other irregular past participles

faire, offrir, ouvrir

fait/ite, offert/erte, ouvert/erte

The only two verbs which this rule does not apply to are the auxiliary verbs être and avoir, which are invariables and do not change to accommodte genders of words, subjects or CODs, no matter what.

'ils ont été à l'école ensemble' / 'l'école a été l'endroit où ils étaient ensemble'

'elles ont eu les mêmes notes au contrôle de maths' / 'les notes qu'elles ont eu au contrôle de maths sont toutes les mêmes'

Hope this is helpful if you're stuck! Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions 

Laura :)

Answered by Laura M. French tutor

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