How do I form the passé composé with the auxiliary verb être?

In French the majority of verbs use avoir in the perfect tense e.g. je joue becomes j'ai joué (with 'ai' being avoir conjugated into the first person 'je' or I).

However some verbs take être instead, these are the DOCTOR and MRS VANDERTRAMP verbs (a useful acronym to help us remember them) as well as reflexive verbs. In these cases, the positioning of être is the same as that of avoir, but the conjugation is as follows: je suis, tu es, il/elle/on est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils/elles sont.

For example, in the present tense the reflexive verb se lever (to get up) is conjugated in the first person as 'je me leve'. In the perfect tense this becomes je me suis levé. Note that 'me' the reflexive pronoun goes before the conjugated form of être. This is the same for all reflexive pronouns.

When using être as the auxiliary verb in the perfect tense it is also important to remember that gender needs to agree with the past participle. In the case of je me suis levé, it would become je me suis levée if the person talking was female.