French grammar · Intermediate
The Past Participle of Entrer: Entré, Entrée, Entrés, Entrées
The past participle of entrer is entré, and it agrees with the subject when the verb takes être: elle est entrée, ils sont entrés. Entrer only takes avoir in its transitive sense of entering something into a system or a container, as in j'ai entré les données, and then the participle stops agreeing with the subject.
Elle est entrée sans frapper.
She came in without knocking.
What it is
Entrer is a completely regular -er verb, so its participle is formed by swapping -er for -é. What makes it worth a page is the auxiliary. In almost every sentence you will ever write, entrer means to go in and takes être, which forces the participle to agree with the subject. The rarer transitive entrer, meaning to key something in, takes avoir and behaves like any ordinary verb.
Les invités sont entrés dans le salon. — The guests came into the living room.
How to spot it
Check whether anything is being put somewhere. If the sentence only says that someone or something went in, use être and make the participle agree. If a noun follows that names what was entered into a system, use avoir.
- Il est entré par la porte de service. — He came in through the service door.
- Nous sommes entrées ensemble. — We came in together. (two women)
- J'ai entré mon code. — I entered my code.
- Le mot est entré dans la langue au XIXe siècle. — The word entered the language in the nineteenth century.
Entrer dans quelque chose is not a direct object. Dans marks the place you went into, so the auxiliary stays être.
Entrer with Avoir or Être Quick Reference
The four written forms of the participle
| Subject | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| masculine singular | entré | il est entré — he came in |
| feminine singular | entrée | elle est entrée — she came in |
| masculine plural | entrés | ils sont entrés — they came in |
| feminine plural | entrées | elles sont entrées — they came in |
| mixed group | entrés | Paul et Marie sont entrés — Paul and Marie came in |
| with avoir, object after | entré (no change) | j'ai entré les chiffres — I entered the figures |
| with avoir, object before | agrees with the object | les chiffres que j'ai entrés — the figures I entered |
Common Entrer with Avoir or Être Examples in French
Entrer in its two lives:
Going In (être)
- Je suis entré dans la boulangerie.
- I went into the bakery.
- Elle est entrée à l'université en septembre.
- She started university in September.
- Ils sont entrés sans faire de bruit.
- They came in without making a sound.
- Une odeur de café est entrée dans la pièce.
- A smell of coffee came into the room.
Entrer à l'université, entrer en fonction, entrer en scène: all figurative, all still être.
Entering Data (avoir)
- J'ai entré toutes les adresses dans le fichier.
- I entered all the addresses into the file.
- Elle a entré son mot de passe deux fois.
- She entered her password twice.
- Nous avons entré les résultats hier soir.
- We entered the results last night.
- Tu as entré la bonne date ?
- Did you enter the right date ?
This use is modern and largely administrative or technical. Saisir is the more formal alternative.
Agreement in Writing
- Ma sœur est entrée à l'hôpital lundi.
- My sister went into hospital on Monday.
- Les enfants sont entrés en courant.
- The children ran in.
- Toutes les candidates sont entrées à l'heure.
- All the candidates came in on time.
- Les données que j'ai entrées sont fausses.
- The data I entered is wrong.
The last example agrees with a preceding direct object even though the auxiliary is avoir.
Fixed Expressions
- La loi est entrée en vigueur en janvier.
- The law came into force in January.
- Il est entré en contact avec nous.
- He got in touch with us.
- Elle est entrée dans les détails.
- She went into detail.
- Ça n'entre pas en ligne de compte.
- That doesn't come into it.
Notice the missing article in entrer en vigueur and entrer en contact. These are frozen phrases.
How Entrer Chooses Its Auxiliary
The verb is regular; the only decision is which auxiliary the sentence needs, and one question settles it.
Entrer Is Normally Intransitive
In the overwhelming majority of sentences nothing follows entrer except a preposition or an adverb. That makes it a verb of movement, which puts it in the small group that builds compound tenses with être.
Nous sommes entrés vers dix heures.
We went in around ten.
No object → être.
Être Forces Agreement With the Subject
Once the auxiliary is être, the participle is treated like an adjective describing the subject. Add -e for a feminine subject, -s for a plural, and -es for both.
Mes filles sont entrées les premières.
My daughters went in first.
entré, entrée, entrés, entrées.
Dans, à and En Do Not Create an Object
English enter takes a direct object, which is why entrer la pièce feels tempting. French requires a preposition, and that preposition guarantees the verb stays intransitive.
Il est entré dans la salle de réunion.
He entered the meeting room.
entrer dans, never entrer + noun.
The Transitive Use Is Narrow
Entrer takes a direct object only when you are feeding something into a system, a machine, or a record. Then it takes avoir and the participle no longer looks at the subject.
Elle a entré la commande dans le logiciel.
She entered the order into the software.
Data goes in → avoir.
With Avoir the Ordinary Object Rule Applies
The participle agrees only if the direct object sits in front of the verb, which happens with pronouns and relative clauses. Otherwise it stays as entré.
Ces informations, je les ai entrées ce matin.
Those details, I entered them this morning.
Object first → agreement.
Common Mistakes with Entrer with Avoir or Être
Incorrect: Elle est entré dans la cuisine. — She went into the kitchen.
Correct: Elle est entrée dans la cuisine. — She went into the kitchen.
With être the participle agrees with the subject, and elle is feminine. The added -e is silent, which is exactly why it gets left off in writing.
Incorrect: J'ai entré dans la salle. — I entered the room.
Correct: Je suis entré dans la salle. — I entered the room.
English enter takes a direct object, so the sentence feels transitive. In French dans la salle is a place expression, the verb has no object, and the auxiliary must be être.
Incorrect: Il est entré la salle. — He entered the room.
Correct: Il est entré dans la salle. — He entered the room.
Entrer cannot be followed directly by the place. The preposition dans is compulsory, and leaving it out is one of the most recognisable English-speaker slips with this verb.
Incorrect: Les données que j'ai entré sont fausses. — The data I entered is wrong.
Correct: Les données que j'ai entrées sont fausses. — The data I entered is wrong.
Que refers back to les données, a feminine plural direct object placed before the verb, so the avoir rule requires the participle to agree with it.
Entrer Conjugated
Nothing about the simple tenses is irregular: entrer is the parler pattern with a vowel at the start, so je becomes j' throughout. The auxiliary split only shows up in the compound tenses.
Simple Tenses
Identical for both meanings of the verb, because the choice of auxiliary is invisible until you build a compound tense.
| Pronoun | présent | imparfait | futur simple | conditionnel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| je / j' | entre | entrais | entrerai | entrerais |
| tu | entres | entrais | entreras | entrerais |
| il / elle / on | entre | entrait | entrera | entrerait |
| nous | entrons | entrions | entrerons | entrerions |
| vous | entrez | entriez | entrerez | entreriez |
| ils / elles | entrent | entraient | entreront | entreraient |
The future and conditional keep the full infinitive, so there are two r sounds in entrerai if you say it carefully.
Passé Composé, Both Auxiliaries
On the left, the ordinary meaning with être and subject agreement. On the right, the transitive meaning with avoir and a flat participle.
| Pronoun | être — to go in | avoir — to enter (les données) |
|---|---|---|
| je / j' | suis entré(e) | ai entré les données |
| tu | es entré(e) | as entré les données |
| il / elle / on | est entré(e) | a entré les données |
| nous | sommes entré(e)s | avons entré les données |
| vous | êtes entré(e)(s) | avez entré les données |
| ils / elles | sont entré(e)s | ont entré les données |
Nothing in the right-hand column agrees, because les données comes after the verb.
The Other Compound Tenses with Être
Put être into the tense you need and the participle keeps agreeing with the subject exactly as before.
| Pronoun | plus-que-parfait | futur antérieur | conditionnel passé |
|---|---|---|---|
| je / j' | étais entré(e) | serai entré(e) | serais entré(e) |
| tu | étais entré(e) | seras entré(e) | serais entré(e) |
| il / elle / on | était entré(e) | sera entré(e) | serait entré(e) |
| nous | étions entré(e)s | serons entré(e)s | serions entré(e)s |
| vous | étiez entré(e)(s) | serez entré(e)(s) | seriez entré(e)(s) |
| ils / elles | étaient entré(e)s | seront entré(e)s | seraient entré(e)s |
Serais entré and serait entré sound the same. Only the subject tells you which one is written.
Rentrer and the Rest of the Family
Entrer belongs to a group of movement verbs that all flip auxiliary in the same way. Rentrer is by far the most common of them in daily speech.
Rentrer
Intransitively it means to go back in or to get home and takes être. Transitively it means to bring something in from outside and takes avoir, and this use is genuinely frequent.
- Je suis rentrée tard hier soir.
- I got home late last night.
- J'ai rentré la voiture au garage.
- I put the car in the garage.
- Ils sont rentrés de vacances dimanche.
- They came back from holiday on Sunday.
- As-tu rentré le linge ?
- Did you bring the washing in ?
Rentrer le linge and rentrer la voiture are everyday sentences, which makes rentrer the easiest member of the group to hear with avoir.
Monter, descendre, sortir, retourner, passer
Each one is être when the subject moves and avoir when the subject moves something else. The transitive meaning is always to carry, take, or turn.
- Elle est montée au grenier.
- She went up to the attic.
- Elle a monté les cartons au grenier.
- She carried the boxes up to the attic.
- Nous sommes descendus par l'escalier.
- We came down the stairs.
- Nous avons descendu le canapé.
- We took the sofa down.
Learning the pattern once covers six verbs, which is why it is worth the effort.
Entré as an adjective
The participle can stand on its own as a descriptive word, and then it agrees like any adjective, with no auxiliary in sight.
- une expression entrée dans le langage courant
- an expression that has entered everyday speech
- des données mal entrées
- badly entered data
- les nouveaux entrants du marché
- the new entrants to the market
Entrant with an -a- is the present participle and a separate word; do not confuse it with entrant as a noun.
Entrer with Avoir or Être FAQs
- What is the past participle of entrer?
- Entré, with the feminine entrée, the masculine plural entrés and the feminine plural entrées. Since the verb almost always takes être, you will write the agreeing forms far more often than the bare one: elle est entrée, elles sont entrées.
- Is entrer conjugated with être or avoir?
- Être in its normal meaning of going in, avoir only when it has a direct object in the sense of entering information. Je suis entré dans le bureau, but j'ai entré les chiffres dans le tableau.
- Why can't I say j'ai entré la pièce?
- Because entrer does not take a place as a direct object in French. You need a preposition: je suis entré dans la pièce. The absence of the object is also what makes the auxiliary être rather than avoir.
- What is the difference between entrer and rentrer?
- Entrer is simply to go in; rentrer adds the idea of going back in or coming home. Je rentre à la maison means I'm going home, while j'entre dans la maison just means I'm walking through the door.
- Does entré agree in entrer en vigueur?
- Yes, with the subject as usual, because the auxiliary is still être. La loi est entrée en vigueur, les mesures sont entrées en vigueur. The frozen phrase en vigueur never changes, but the participle in front of it does.