How do I form the past perfect tense in French?

In French, the past perfect tense is composed of two elements: the auxiliary verb and the past participle. The kind of action you are describing determines which auxiliary verb you will need to use: either avoir or être.However, the form of the auxiliary verb that we use in a sentence depends on who is doing the action, so first we need to conjugate the verbeg. avoir = j'ai, tu as, il/elle a, nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ontêtre = je suis, tu es, il/elle est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils/elles sont Many verbs in French take avoir as their auxiliary verb. eg. faire, jouer, prendre, manger, boire. To form the past participle of a regular -er verb, you need to take the infinitive of the verb, remove the -er ending, which will give you the stem, then add -é to the end.eg. Infinitive = manger, stem = manger (mang), past participle = mangéLet's take a look an example sentence:Yesterday, she ate an ice cream. Hier, elle a mangé une glace.In some cases, you will need to use the verb être as the auxiliary verb. This happens when the action you are describing is an example of movement or a change of state. There is an easy way of remembering some of the main verbs which use être: MRS VANDERTRAMP.M = monter, R = retourner, S = sortir, V = venir, A = arriver, N = naître, D = descendre, E = entrer, R = rester, T = tomber, R = rentrer, A = aller, M = mourir, P = partirLet's take a look an example sentence: He returned last week. Il est retourné la semaine dernière.

Answered by Charlotte O. French tutor

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