Perfect tense with avoir - basic -er verbs
Key points
- The perfect in French is made up of two verbs: an auxiliary, usually the present tense of the verb avoir, e.g. j'ai, tu as etc.
- And a past participle. For -er verbs this is formed by removing the –er from the infinitive, and adding é: e.g. aimé
In English and in French you use a past tense when you wish to express something that happened in the past. As in English, in French there are different types of past tense. The most common is called the perfect tense.
The perfect is used to express something you’ve finished doing, the equivalent of I did or I have done in English:
The perfect in French is made up of two verbs :
Note
The perfect in French has only one form, j'ai aimé. In English there are two forms, I liked and I have liked.
Try not to get into the habit of always translating the perfect with have, just because French has the verb avoir as an auxiliary.
| aimer to like | ||
|---|---|---|
| j’ | ai aimé | |
| tu | as aimé | |
| il / elle | a aimé | |
| nous | avons aimé | |
| vous | avez aimé | |
| ils / elles | ont aimé | |
J' ai travaillé pendant deux heures
I worked for two hours
Tu as aimé le film?
Did you like the film?
Il son parapluie
He forgot his umbrella
Nous à neuf heures
We started at 9 o’clock