The perfect tense with avoir
What happened: j'ai joué, nous avons fini, ils ont pris, and the past participles to know by heart (été, eu, fait, vu).
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The perfect tense with avoir, explained point by point
Everything the GCSE specification expects you to be able to do, and how to actually do it - the same lesson a signed-in student studies from.
Use the perfect tense for what happened
The perfect covers two English past tenses: j'ai joué means I played or I have played. It is the tense for single, finished events: hier, j'ai regardé un film.
Build it from avoir and a past participle
Use the present of avoir, then the past participle: j'ai mangé, tu as mangé, il a mangé, nous avons mangé, vous avez mangé, ils ont mangé. Only avoir changes; the participle stays the same.
Form the past participle of regular verbs
-er verbs end in -é: jouer, joué. Verbs like choisir end in -i (fini, choisi), and verbs like entendre end in -u (vendu, attendu).
Learn the irregular past participles
Some common verbs have a participle of their own: été from être, eu from avoir, fait from faire, pris from prendre and ouvert from ouvrir. Learn vu, bu, lu, écrit and reçu too: j'ai vu un film, il a bu un café.
Put ne and pas round avoir
In the negative, ne and pas go round the part of avoir, and the participle comes after them: je n'ai pas fini, nous n'avons jamais vu la mer.
Place short adverbs and object pronouns
A short adverb such as bien, déjà or beaucoup usually goes between avoir and the participle: j'ai bien mangé, j'ai déjà fait mes devoirs. An object pronoun goes before avoir: je l'ai vu.
Choose the perfect after time words like hier
Hier, le week-end dernier, l'année dernière and il y a deux jours (two days ago) show that an action is finished, so the perfect is needed: samedi dernier, j'ai acheté un jean.
The perfect tense with avoir key terms
The words the specification and the mark schemes use, each defined the way an examiner wants it.
- Perfect tense
- The tense for a finished action in the past: j'ai mangé means I ate or I have eaten. French calls it le passé composé.
- Auxiliary verb
- The helper verb in the perfect tense, which changes for the person: avoir for most verbs, as in the ai of j'ai joué.
- Past participle
- The part of the verb after the auxiliary, which does not change for the subject after avoir: joué, fini, vendu.
- été
- Been, the past participle of être: j'ai été malade means I was ill or I have been ill.
- eu
- Had, the past participle of avoir: j'ai eu de la chance means I was lucky.
- fait
- Done or made, the past participle of faire: j'ai fait du ski means I went skiing.
- hier
- Yesterday, a time word that usually calls for the perfect: hier, j'ai travaillé.
- il y a with a time
- Ago: il y a deux ans means two years ago, as in j'ai visité Rome il y a deux ans.
Common mistakes in The perfect tense with avoir
The slips that cost marks year after year, and what to do instead.
Leaving out avoir, as in je mangé une pizza.
The perfect needs both parts, the auxiliary and then the participle: j'ai mangé une pizza, elle a mangé une pizza.
Giving every verb an -é participle, as in j'ai prendé or j'ai finé.
Only -er verbs take -é. Finir gives fini, vendre gives vendu, and prendre has its own form, pris.
Writing j'ai jouer or j'ai jouez for I played.
All three sound alike, but the participle is spelt joué. After avoir it is -é; after another verb, as in je vais jouer, it is the infinitive.
Putting pas after the participle, as in je n'ai joué pas.
Ne and pas go round avoir, and the participle comes after pas: je n'ai pas joué.
Using the present with hier, as in hier, je joue au foot.
A finished event in the past takes the perfect: hier, j'ai joué au foot. Check the time words before you choose the tense.
Practice
Try a The perfect tense with avoir question
A GCSE-style original question from this topic. Have a go before you open the working - deciding on an answer first is what makes the working stick.
Which sentence is right?
- Je n'ai compris pas la question.
- Je ne pas ai compris la question.
- Je n'ai pas compris la question.
- Je ai pas compris la question.
Show the answer and the working
Answer: Je n'ai pas compris la question.
In the perfect, ne ... pas goes round the auxiliary: je n'ai pas compris, with ne shortened before the vowel.
- The negative wraps round ai.
- Ne becomes n' before ai.
- The participle comes after pas.