How do I form the perfect tense of regular verbs in French?

The perfect tense is used for completed actions in the past, for example, 'I played'- 'j'ai joué'To form the perfect tense, we need a subject (a noun, name, or pronoun - je, tu, il, etc.), an auxiliary (helping) verb (the correct part of avoir or être) and a past participle of the verb.The auxiliary verb should correspond to the subject of the verb: For example:j'ai je suistu as tu esil/elle/on a il/elle/on estvous avez vous êtesnous avons nous sommesils/elles/ ont ils/elles sontTo form the past participle of the verb, take the verb in the present tense and remove the -ER, -IR or -RE.Then add the ending: for -ER verbs this is é, for -IR verbs this is i, and for -RE verbs this is u. Let's look at some completed verbs in the perfect tense!For example:I played = JE (subject) + AI (correct part of auxiliary verb avoir) + JOUÉ (past participle of jouer) = J'ai jouéShe grew up= ELLE (subject) + A (correct part of auxiliary verb avoir) + GRANDI (past participle of grandir) = Elle a grandiWe waited= NOUS (subject) + AVONS (correct part of auxiliary verb avoir) + ATTENDU (past participle of attendre) = Nous avons attenduRemember- this is how to form REGULAR verbs in the perfect tense! We will look at how to form IRREGULAR verbs and VERBS USING ÊTRE next time.

Answered by Olivia C. French tutor

1043 Views

See similar French GCSE tutors

Related French GCSE answers

All answers ▸

Give an account of a holiday


Translate 'You (pl) got dressed' into french (s'habiller)


Is there an easy formula for creating compound tenses?


How do I know when to use the passé composé or the imparfait?


We're here to help

contact us iconContact usWhatsapp logoMessage us on Whatsapptelephone icon+44 (0) 203 773 6020
Facebook logoInstagram logoLinkedIn logo
Cookie Preferences