8/18/2019 13 Verbs With Etre

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French

Perfect tense with être - talking about the past

This Revision Bite will give you practice in using the

perfect tense with être in French so you can talk about the

past.

Forming the perfect tense with être

The perfect tense is used to talk about something that

appened in the past. It's an action that is completely finished.Some verbs take être to form the perfect tense.

You need two parts to form the perfect tense with être:

the present tense of être

the past participle of the main verb

Agreement

When you form the perfect tense with être, the past participle

agrees with the subject of the verb (the person doing the

action):

add -e to the past participle for feminine singular --> allée

add -s for masculine plural --> allés

add -es for feminine plural --> allées

So the perfect tense of aller (to go) is:

 je suis allé(e)

tu es allé(e)

il est allé

elle est allée

on est allé(e)(s)nous sommes allé(e)s

vous êtes allé(e)(s)

ils sont allés

elles sont allées

Verbs that take être in the perfect tense

A limited number of verbs take être. Here is the list of the verbs

sed with être in the perfect tense. Try to memorise them as

he MRS VANDERTRAMP verbs:

Monter --> monté (went up)Retourner --> retourné (returned)

Sortir --> sorti (went out)

Venir --> venu (came)

Arriver --> arrivé (arrived)

Naître --> né (was born)

Descendre --> descendu (went down)

Entrer --> entré (entered)

Rester --> resté (stayed)

Tomber --> tombé (fell)

Rentrer --> rentré (went back in)

Aller --> allé (went)

Mourir --> mort (died)

Partir --> parti (left)

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