3.8 The perfect — passé composé with avoir — Epoché
What you will be able to do Build a past tense out of two words — the present of the auxiliary verb for having, plus a past participle — for any verb that takes that auxiliary, which is the great majority of them. Form the past participle of any regular verb from its infinitive, and recall the commonest irregular participles. Say why I saw him yesterday is a perfect tense in French although it is a simple past in English, and stop translating the English tense instead of the English meaning. Put the negative and the question around a two-word verb, which is not where an English speaker's instinct puts them. Sentences from this lesson, before the explanation. Read the French aloud; all of them come back below. French English J'ai mangé. [1] I've eaten. Tu as gagné ! [2] You've won! Il a commencé. [3] He began. Nous avons gagné. [4] We won. Vous avez gagné. [5] You've won. Prerequisites : 3.7 — the present of avoir (lesson 3.2), because it is the engine of this tense, and the irregular verbs of lesson 3.7, because some of the participles here belong to them. This is the first full past tense in the course. From this lesson you can talk about what happened, with machinery you already half own: the construction of English I have eaten , a helper verb carrying person and tense and a fixed form of the main verb carrying the meaning. What you have to learn is a short inventory of participles, and one thing about meaning that is not obvious at all. French grammar calls this tense the composed past , describing its form. English calls its look-alike the present perfect, describing its meaning. The two look identical and do not mean the same thing, and that mismatch is the real content of this lesson. The forms take an afternoon; the mismatch takes a month, and until you absorb it your French will be grammatical and subtly wrong. One tense built out of two words The recipe: the verb for having in the present, in the person you want, followed by the past participle of the verb that carries the meaning. The auxiliary tells you who and that the event is past. The participle does not change with the subject — not for person, not for number — so six forms of a helper you know plus one participle give you the whole tense. There is one exception, and it shows mostly in writing. When the direct object stands before the verb — in practice, an object pronoun such as le , la or les — the participle agrees with that object: Je l'ai vu if the thing or person seen is masculine, Je l'ai vue , I saw her , with the added letter of the feminine. In most participles the added letter is silent, so vu and vue sound alike; in a few you can hear it ( écrit , écrite ). With an object after the verb, as in j'ai vu Marie , nothing changes. Lesson 3.9 goes further: with the other auxiliary, the participle agrees with the subject. This lesson is the simple half of the perfect, and it covers most French verbs. English uses have for everything: I have eaten , I have gone . Older English did not — he is come , they are risen . French keeps that old distinction: most verbs take the verb for having, and a small closed set of verbs of motion and change of state take the verb for being. Assume the verb for having until told otherwise and you will be right most of the time. Table The paradigm first, with one verb of the first group. Only the first column moves. Person Auxiliary + participle 1 sg j'ai parlé 2 sg tu as parlé 3 sg il a parlé 1 pl nous avons parlé 2 pl vous avez parlé 3 pl ils ont parlé The second word is the same in all six. Now the participles, in four blocks; in the first two, the regular groups, a rule derives the participle from the infinitive. Group 1 — the ending becomes an accented vowel Participle parler , to speak parlé manger , to eat mangé regarder , to look at regardé acheter , to buy acheté donner , to give donné trouver , to find trouvé oublier , to forget oublié gagner , to win gagné commencer , to begin commencé travailler , to work travaillé aimer , to like, to love aimé chanter , to sing chanté One rule for nine verbs in ten: replace the two-letter infinitive ending with a single accented vowel. The spelling changes of lesson 3.4 do not appear, because this ending triggers none of them. Group 2 — the ending loses its consonant Participle finir , to finish fini choisir , to choose choisi réussir , to succeed réussi grandir , to grow grandi obéir , to obey obéi remplir , to fill rempli réfléchir , to think over réfléchi punir , to punish puni bâtir , to build bâti applaudir , to applaud applaudi saisir , to seize saisi guérir , to cure, to get better guéri Even simpler: drop the final consonant of the infinitive. The marker of lesson 3.5 does not appear, so group two has no irregularity at all in this tense. Some group-three verbs with the same infinitive ending behave the same way, as dormir , sentir and servir in the last table below show; others do not, such as ouvrir , offrir , courir and tenir in the next table. Irregular — the two dozen worth memorising Participle avoir , to have eu être , to be été faire , to do, to make fait prendre , to take pris apprendre , to learn appris comprendre , to understand compris mettre , to put mis dire , to say dit écrire , to write écrit voir , to see vu boire , to drink bu lire , to read lu vouloir , to want voulu pouvoir , to be able to pu devoir , to have to dû savoir , to know su croire , to believe cru vivre , to live vécu connaître , to be acquainted with connu recevoir , to receive reçu ouvrir , to open ouvert offrir , to offer, to give a present offert courir , to run couru tenir , to hold tenu Count the endings rather than the words. There are only five shapes: -é , -u , -is , -it and -ert . Fourteen of the twenty-four end in -u . So this is five patterns with a membership to learn, not twenty-four unrelated facts. Two more families with their own rule Participle attendre , to wait for attendu entendre , to hear entendu répondre , to answer répondu desce