How is the perfect tense formed with AVOIR?

The perfect tense is a form of past tense, it is used to describe an action that is completely finished. To form this tense most verbs use a conjugation of AVOIR in front of them. It is formed by the present tense of avoir for the person you are talking about ( ie. J'ai, Tu as , Il/Elle a, Nous avons , Vous avez, Ils/elles ont) + the past participle of the verb The past participle is just another form of the verb and is made depending on whether the verb ends is -er , -ir or -re. Below are three examples with the rules of how to form the past participle: Regular verbs that end in -er: take off the -er and add -é ( eg. manger --> mangé ). When adding this onto the present tense of avoir it would form the tense: J'ai mangé - I ate , Elle a mangè- she ate , Ils ont mangé- they ate. Regular verbs that end in -ir: take off the -ir and add -i (eg. finir --> fini ) An example of a sentence is: elle a fini ses devoirs - She finished her homework. Regular verbs that end in -re: take off the -re and add -u (eg. entendre --> entendu). An example is: nous avons entendu le bruit- we heard the noise. An important note is that when AVOIR is used to form the perfect tense there does not need to be any verbal agreement- the past participle is always the same regardless of if it is a man, a woman or a group of people that is being discussed. Also, it is important to remember that the past participles of irrgeular verbs do not follow this pattern and it is more a case of learning and recognising these verbs.

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Answered by Isabella D. French tutor

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