There are three main parts to the past tense in French. The following formula represents these three parts: Le sujet + L’auxiliaire + Le participe passé
Le Sujet
When you compose a sentence, a subject is usually included. The subject is the person(s) and/or thing that is performing the action/verb. In French, these are the common subjects:
| Je – I | Nous – We |
| Tu – You | Vous – You all, you |
| Il – He | Ils – They (group of males, or male(s) and female(s)) |
| Elle – She | Elles – They (group of females) |
| On – We |
L’Auxiliaire
For regular ir, er, and re verbs, the auxiliary would be the verb “avoir” conjugated into the present tense. It is important to pay attention to the subject of the sentence to ensure that the conjugation is associated to the appropriate subject.
| J’ai | Nous avons |
| Tu as | Vous avez |
| Il/Elle/On a | Ils/Elles ont |
Le Participe Passé
The conjugation of the infinitive verb to the past participle varies for each type of regular verb. Below are the conjugations for er, ir, and re verbs.
ER verbs
Take out the -er ending and substitute it with “é” for all of the subjects.
Example: Parler
| J’ai parlé | Nous avons parlé |
| Tu as parlé | Vous avez parlé |
| Il/Elle/On a parlé | Ils/Elles ont parlé |
IR verbs
Take out the -ir ending and substitute it with “i” for all of the subjects.
Example: Finir
| J’ai fini | Nous avons fini |
| Tu as fini | Vous avez fini |
| Il/Elle/On a fini | Ils/Elles ont fini |
RE verbs
Take out the -re ending and substitute it with “u” for all of the subjects.
Example: Vendre
| J’ai vendu | Nous avons vendu |
| Tu as vendu | Vous avez vendu |
| Il/Elle/On a vendu | Ils/Elles ont vendu |
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