French grammar · Beginner
The French Past Participle: Formation, Irregulars, and Agreement
The past participle (le participe passé) is the verb form that builds every compound tense in French: parlé, fini, vendu. It carries no person ending of its own, so the auxiliary avoir or être does all the conjugating. Its one variable is agreement, which adds -e and -s in some structures and not in others.
J'ai fini mon travail.
I've finished my work.
What it is
A past participle is a verb with its tense and its person removed. Parlé on its own tells you nothing about who spoke or when — it only names the completed action. Because it is missing that information, French pairs it with a conjugated auxiliary, avoir or être, and the auxiliary supplies everything the participle lacks.
Nous avons vendu la maison ; elle est déjà partie. — We've sold the house; she has already left.
How to spot it
The ending tells you which family the verb comes from: -er verbs end in -é, -ir verbs in -i, and -re verbs usually in -u. Anything outside those three shapes is irregular and has to be learned as a separate word.
- regarder → regardé — to watch → watched
- choisir → choisi — to choose → chosen
- attendre → attendu — to wait → waited
- écrire → écrit — to write → written (irregular)
The -é ending covers by far the largest group, because roughly nine in ten French verbs end in -er.
Past Participle Quick Reference
Past participle endings by verb family
| Family | Ending | Infinitive | Participle |
|---|---|---|---|
| -er verbs | -é | donner | donné |
| -ir verbs | -i | dormir | dormi |
| -re verbs | -u | descendre | descendu |
| -oir verbs | -u | recevoir | reçu |
| Irregular in -t | -t | faire | fait |
| Irregular in -s | -s | prendre | pris |
| Irregular in -ert | -ert | ouvrir | ouvert |
Common Past Participle Examples in French
The past participle at work:
Compound Tenses with Avoir
- J'ai compris la question.
- I understood the question.
- Elle avait déjà mangé.
- She had already eaten.
- Nous aurons terminé avant midi.
- We'll have finished before noon.
- Tu aurais dû me le dire.
- You should have told me.
Only the auxiliary moves through the tenses. Compris, mangé, terminé, and dû stay exactly as they are.
Être Verbs and Agreement
- Elle est arrivée en retard.
- She arrived late.
- Ils sont montés au dernier étage.
- They went up to the top floor.
- Mes sœurs sont rentrées hier.
- My sisters came back yesterday.
- Nous sommes restés une semaine.
- We stayed a week.
With être the participle behaves like an adjective and agrees with the subject: arrivée, montés, rentrées.
Agreement with a Preceding Object
- Je les ai vus hier.
- I saw them yesterday.
- La lettre que j'ai reçue était longue.
- The letter I received was long.
- Quelles photos as-tu prises ?
- Which photos did you take?
- Elle s'est coupé le doigt.
- She cut her finger.
With avoir the participle agrees only when the direct object sits in front of the verb. J'ai vu les films has no -s, but je les ai vus does. In the last example the object le doigt follows, so coupé stays bare.
Standing In as an Adjective
- une porte fermée
- a closed door
- un travail bien fait
- a job well done
- les lettres écrites à la main
- the handwritten letters
- un enfant fatigué
- a tired child
Used this way the participle takes all four adjective forms: fermé, fermée, fermés, fermées.
How the Past Participle Works
One form, two auxiliaries, and a single agreement question that decides whether letters get added to the end.
It Has No Person of Its Own
A participle never changes for je, tu, or nous. That is the whole reason it needs an auxiliary: avoir and être carry the person and the tense, and the participle supplies the meaning.
Nous avons choisi ensemble.
We chose together.
The auxiliary conjugates; the participle doesn't.
Three Regular Endings, One per Family
Strip the infinitive ending and add the participle ending for that family. Rougir loses -ir and takes -i; répondre loses -re and takes -u. If you can name the family, you can build the participle.
Elle a rougi, puis elle a répondu.
She blushed, then she answered.
-er → -é, -ir → -i, -re → -u.
With Être, It Agrees with the Subject
Verbs of movement and change of state take être, and with être the participle looks left at the subject and matches its gender and number, exactly as an adjective would.
Les filles sont descendues.
The girls went downstairs.
être → look left at the subject.
With Avoir, It Agrees Only with a Preceding Direct Object
Normally the direct object follows the verb and nothing happens. But when the object is moved in front — as a pronoun, after que, or in a question — the participle agrees with it instead.
Les clés ? Je les ai perdues.
The keys? I've lost them.
Direct object before the verb → agree.
Irregular Participles Cluster by Ending
The irregulars are not random. Most land in one of four shapes: -u (vu, bu, lu, su, pu), -is (pris, mis, assis), -it (dit, écrit, conduit), and -ert (ouvert, offert, souffert). Learning them in those groups is much faster than learning them one by one.
Il a mis la table et ouvert les fenêtres.
He set the table and opened the windows.
-u, -is, -it, -ert cover most irregulars.
Common Mistakes with Past Participle
Incorrect: J'ai allé au marché. — I went to the market.
Correct: Je suis allé au marché. — I went to the market.
Aller takes être, not avoir. English has a single auxiliary for the perfect, so learners default to avoir for every verb and only later notice that a short list of movement verbs behaves differently.
Incorrect: Elle est arrivé. — She arrived.
Correct: Elle est arrivée. — She arrived.
With être the participle agrees with the subject, so a feminine subject adds -e. The extra letter is completely silent, which is exactly why it disappears in writing.
Incorrect: Voilà les livres que j'ai lu. — Here are the books I read.
Correct: Voilà les livres que j'ai lus. — Here are the books I read.
Que is the direct object and it stands in front of the verb, so the participle agrees with les livres. Learners are usually taught that avoir never agrees, which is only true when the object comes after.
Incorrect: J'ai prendu le train. — I took the train.
Correct: J'ai pris le train. — I took the train.
Prendre does not follow the -re → -u pattern. Its participle is pris, and so are those of its whole family: appris, compris, surpris, repris.
The Same Participle Across the Compound Tenses
Every compound tense in French is an auxiliary plus a past participle. Once you know the participle, the only thing left to choose is which tense to put avoir or être in.
Passé composé with avoir
The present tense of avoir plus the participle. This is the tense you meet first and use most, and it is the template for all the others.
| Pronoun | parler (parlé) | finir (fini) | vendre (vendu) |
|---|---|---|---|
| je / j' | ai parlé | ai fini | ai vendu |
| tu | as parlé | as fini | as vendu |
| il / elle / on | a parlé | a fini | a vendu |
| nous | avons parlé | avons fini | avons vendu |
| vous | avez parlé | avez fini | avez vendu |
| ils / elles | ont parlé | ont fini | ont vendu |
The participle is identical in all six rows. Nothing about the subject reaches it.
Passé composé with être, where agreement shows
The same structure with être instead, so the participle now matches the subject. The endings in brackets are the ones you add for a feminine or plural subject.
| Pronoun | aller (allé) | partir (parti) | venir (venu) |
|---|---|---|---|
| je / j' | suis allé(e) | suis parti(e) | suis venu(e) |
| tu | es allé(e) | es parti(e) | es venu(e) |
| il / elle / on | est allé(e) | est parti(e) | est venu(e) |
| nous | sommes allé(e)s | sommes parti(e)s | sommes venu(e)s |
| vous | êtes allé(e)(s) | êtes parti(e)(s) | êtes venu(e)(s) |
| ils / elles | sont allé(e)s | sont parti(e)s | sont venu(e)s |
Vous has the most options because it can be one polite person or a whole group: vous êtes venue for one woman, vous êtes venus for a mixed group.
One participle, four tenses
Take fini and move avoir through the present, imperfect, future, and conditional. The participle never budges, which is why learning it once pays off four times over.
| Pronoun | passé composé | plus-que-parfait | futur antérieur | conditionnel passé |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| je / j' | ai fini | avais fini | aurai fini | aurais fini |
| tu | as fini | avais fini | auras fini | aurais fini |
| il / elle / on | a fini | avait fini | aura fini | aurait fini |
| nous | avons fini | avions fini | aurons fini | aurions fini |
| vous | avez fini | aviez fini | aurez fini | auriez fini |
| ils / elles | ont fini | avaient fini | auront fini | auraient fini |
The subjunctive past follows the same logic with the subjunctive of avoir: que j'aie fini.
Past Participles Outside the Compound Tenses
The participle has a second life as a describing word, and French leans on it much harder than English does.
As a plain adjective
Placed next to a noun, a participle describes the state something ended up in, and it takes the full set of adjective endings.
- une fenêtre ouverte
- an open window
- des places réservées
- reserved seats
- du pain grillé
- toast (grilled bread)
- Il est assis au fond.
- He's sitting at the back.
Assis and couché are participles where English uses -ing: he is sitting, she is lying down. French sees the position as a result, not an activity.
In the passive voice
The passive is être plus a past participle, and because the auxiliary is être, the participle agrees with the subject.
- La loi a été votée hier.
- The law was passed yesterday.
- Ces maisons sont construites en pierre.
- These houses are built of stone.
- Le dossier sera envoyé demain.
- The file will be sent tomorrow.
A compound passive stacks two participles: a été votée is the participle of être plus the participle of voter.
Opening a shortened clause
A participle can start a sentence on its own, standing in for a whole relative clause. It still agrees with the noun it describes, and that agreement is what tells you who the clause is about.
- Fatigués par le voyage, ils se sont couchés tôt.
- Tired from the journey, they went to bed early.
- Écrite en 1857, la nouvelle a choqué ses lecteurs.
- Written in 1857, the story shocked its readers.
- Une fois arrivée, préviens-moi.
- Once you've arrived, let me know. (speaking to a woman)
This is common in journalism and formal writing, where it compresses two clauses into one.
Past Participle FAQs
- How do you form the past participle in French?
- Remove the infinitive ending and add the one for that family: -er verbs take -é (donner → donné), -ir verbs take -i (dormir → dormi), and -re verbs take -u (descendre → descendu). Around fifty common verbs are irregular, and most of those end in -u, -is, -it, or -ert.
- When does the French past participle agree?
- With être it agrees with the subject: elle est partie, ils sont partis. With avoir it agrees only if the direct object comes before the verb: je les ai vues. Reflexive verbs follow the avoir rule, which is why elle s'est lavée agrees but elle s'est lavé les mains does not.
- What are the most common irregular past participles?
- The ones you will meet daily are avoir → eu, être → été, faire → fait, dire → dit, prendre → pris, mettre → mis, voir → vu, pouvoir → pu, vouloir → voulu, devoir → dû, savoir → su, and venir → venu. Learning these twelve removes most of the friction from the passé composé.
- Is the past participle the same thing as the passé composé?
- No. The past participle is a single word, and the passé composé is a two-word tense built from an auxiliary plus that word. Fini is a participle; j'ai fini is a passé composé. The same participle also appears in the pluperfect, the future perfect, and the passive.
- How do I know whether a verb takes avoir or être?
- The large majority take avoir. Être is reserved for about fifteen verbs of movement and change of state — aller, venir, partir, arriver, entrer, sortir, monter, descendre, rester, tomber, naître, mourir and their relatives — plus every reflexive verb: je me suis levé.