Passé Composé
The Passé Composé is a verb tense that takes place in the past for finished past actions. The passé composé is made up of two parts; the helping verb and the verb actually being conjugated. There are two types helping verbs. Use être for verbs that fall on the D.R.M.R.S.V.A.N.D.E.R.T.R.A.M.P house(See picture below). The house verbs have to agree with the subject of the sentence, meaning you may have to add an extra e or s to the end depending on the gender or if the subject is plural or not. Note that most of the VANDERTRAMP verbs are irregular and may follow different patterns. The rest of the verbs use avoir as their helping verb. For the second verb chop off the -er, and add -é to the end of the stem. For -ir verbs, chop off the -ir and add and -i to the stem. For -re verbs, chop off the -re and add a -u to the stem.
There are words that tell when passé composé should be used.
Some of these words include:
heir(soir)- yesterday
l'année passée- last year
le mois passée-last month
un mois-a month
un jour-a day
une fois/deux fois-one time/two times
soudain-suddenly
tout à coup-suddenly
Conjugation of helping verbs:
être
| Je suis ... | Nous sommes ... |
| Tu es ... | Vous êtes ... |
| Il/Elle est ... | Ils/Elles sont ... |
avoir
| J'ai ... | Nous avons ... |
| Tu as ... | Vous avez ... |
| Il/Elle a ... | Ils/Elles ont ... |
Whole Conjugation:
D.R.M.R.S.V.A.N.D.E.R.T.R.A.M.P
| tomber- to fall |
| Je suis tombé | Nous sommes tombés |
| Tu es tombé | Vous êtes tombés |
| Il/Elle est tombé | Ils/Elles sont tombés |
Regular Avoir Verbs
| manger- to eat |
| J'ai mangé | Nous avons mangé |
| Tu as mangé | Vous avez mangé |
| Il/Elle a mangé | Ils/Elles ont mangé |
| finir- to finish |
| J'ai fini | Nous avons fini |
| Tu as fini | Vous avez fini |
| Il/Elle a fini | Ils/Elles ont fini |
| perdre- to lose |
| J'ai perdu | Nous avons perdu |
| Tu as perdu | Vous avez perdu |
| Il/Elle a perdu | Ils/Elles ont perdu |