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Well, the first thing to know is that to form Pass Compos, you need 2 verbs : an auxiliary (AVOIR or ETRE)

and a past participle. This matches your perfect tense in English, except you only use the auxiliary "to have" : - I have walked - You have done - He has eaten In English, the past participle can have different endings, as the examples above show : -ed, -ne, -en. Well, in French, they change too, depending on what kind of verbs you use. If you use a verb that usually ends in -ER (in the infinitive form, i.e. the form you find in the dictionary), then to form the past participle, you need to take away the -ER ending and put - instead. For verbs ending in -IR in the infinitive form, you need to take it away and replace it by -i And for verbs ending in -RE, you replace it by -u. Of course, there are a lot of irregular past participle, that you'll just need to learn of by heart. Examples : Mettre --> mis ; natre --> n ; courir --> couru ; prendre --> pris ; etc. Most verbs use the auxiliary AVOIR, as in English. So you'll get : I ate = I have eaten => to eat = manger => J'ai mang You finished = You have finished => to finish = finir => tu as fini She waited = She has waited => to wait = attendre => elle a attendu So, all you have to do is conjugate the verb AVOIR in the present tense and then add the past participle. Here's the conjugation of the verb AVOIR: J'ai Tu as Il a Elle a On a Nous avons Vous avez

Ils ont Elles ont Now, let's complicate things a little... Some verbs use ETRE instead of AVOIR. There are about 20 of them : I tell my students to remember them through a nonsensical sentence : MR VANS TRAMPED. All the letters stand for one verb: Monter (to go up) and its derivative : "remonter" Rester (to stay) Venir (to come) and also: "revenir", "parvenir", "devenir", etc. Aller (to go) Natre (to be born) Sortir (to go out) Tomber (to fall) Retourner (to return) Arriver (to arrive) Mourir (to die) Partir (to leave) and also : "repartir", etc. Entrer (to come in / enter) and also : "rentrer", etc. Descendre (to go down) and also : "redescendre", etc. These verbs are what we call "intransitive" verbs, i.e. they can't have any grammatical objects. Example : To go. You cannot "go something" as you could "eat something" or "finish something" or "wait for something", can you? So that verb cannot take an object and therefore needs to use ETRE instead of AVOIR. And the extra difficulty when you use ETRE, is that you need to agree (i.e. add an extra "e" when the subject is feminine, and/or an extra "s" when it's plural) the past participle with the subject. Let's say you wanted to translate : "I went" If we take our former method, you should translate it as "I have gone" - but this time you cannot use AVOIR because there is no object in this sentence. So, "I have" will become "I am" (= Je suis) and then you add the past participle, just like

we've done before, PLUS the agreement, if necessary. Here are a few examples : She went => She has gone => with ETRE => She is gone => Elle est alle We arrived => We have arrived => with ETRE => We are arrived => Nous sommes arrivs They stayed => They have stayed => with ETRE => They are stayed => Elles sont restes Here's a reminder of how to conjugate the verb ETRE in the present tense: Je suis Tu es Il est Elle est On est Nous sommes Vous tes Ils sont Elles sont Now 3 of these verbs above can become transitive (i.e. they can have an object) : DESCENDRE : but then it means "to take something downstairs" MONTER : it then means "to take something upstairs" SORTIR : it then means "to take something outside" If they have an object, then they need to use AVOIR, like all the other verbs. So here are some examples: Elle a descendu les poubelles : She took the bins downstairs. Elle a mont les poubelles : She took the bins upstairs. Elle a sorti les poubelles : She took the bins out(side).

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