When to use “être” or “avoir”

April 2014 Lesson: “être” or “avoir” with “passé composé”
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When to use “être” or “avoir” with “passé composé”
Most verbs in French use “avoir” to form compound tenses such as passé-composé, plusque-parfait, futur-antérieur etc...But some verbs use “être”. In this lesson, I’m going to
point out mnemotechnic ways to memorize them, but mostly I am offering you a deeper
understanding of the logic behind this grammatical behavior.
What matters is what follows
Many methods will tell you this: verbs that use “être” are verbs of movement. It’s true, but
I don’t think this is very helpful, since many verbs of movements do not use “être”, such as
“danser, sauter, courir, marcher…” which use “avoir” (j’ai marché).
What really helps to understand why the verbs constructed with “être” do so, is to know
they are all intransitive verbs: in their original meaning they cannot be followed by a direct
object, but are followed in French by complement of place, time, manner… and this differs
usually from English.
For example, in English, you say “he exited the house”. We exited what? = the house. The
house is a direct object. In French, “il est sorti de la maison”. Il est sorti DE QUOI ? De la
maison. La maison is a complement of place.
Now that you know this, you’ll understand why when you memorize these words, you should
memorize the prepositions that come with them as well.
Most of these verbs can be followed by all prepositions of place: à, au, aux, en, sur, chez, en
bas….
Remember that when you use “être”, the past participle agrees in gender and number with
the subject…
Elles sont entrées dans la maison = they came inside the house.
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T hin k Fre nch - avr i l 2 0 1 4
List of French verbs using “être” to form their compouned tenses
So that you can remember them better, I’ve listed commonly used prepositions after the
verbs but please understand these are not the only prepositions that can be used. Try to
memorize these exemples, or make exemples that are “closer” to your life, so you can
remember them better. Don’t forget your prepositions!
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Venir de: to come from
Elle est venue du Japon – she came from Japan
Arriver à, en, au… : to arrive
Ils sont arrivés au restaurant – they arrived to the restaurant
Monter sur: to climb up on
Je suis montée sur le mur – I climbed up on the wall
Entrer dans: to enter – watch out since this one doesn’t use a preposition in English
Il est entré dans la maison – he entered the house
Rester dans, à…: to stay in
Tu es resté dans ta chambre – you stayed in your room
Sortir de: to exit - watch out since this one doesn’t use a preposition in EnglishOn est sortis de la voiture – we exited the car
Descendre de: to go down (downstairs) from, to climb down…
Nous sommes descendus de l’arbre – we climbed down from the tree
Tomber de, sur… – to fall from, on…
Vous êtes tombées de cheval – you fell from your horse
Partir à, en… – to leave for…
Il est parti en France – he left for France
Aller à, au, en, chez… – to go to, in…
Tu es allée à Paris – you went to Paris
Passer par – to go through a place
Nous sommes passés par Paris – we went through Paris
Retourner à, au, en – to back (again) to (more on this verb)
Il est retourné à la boulangerie – he went back again to the bakery
Naître à, au, en – To be born in
Je suis née à Paris – I was born in Paris
Mourir à, au, en… – To die in
Elle est morte chez elle – she died in her home
+ all the verbs built on these verbs also use être: rentrer, devenir, revenir, repartir…
(Part two of this lesson will be continued in the May 2014 issue of Think French.)
w w w. t h i n k f re n c h . c o m
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