File - Mme. Danielle Boston
Transcription
File - Mme. Danielle Boston
Les verbes – Passé composé We’ve already established how useful verbs are, and how you can use them to say “I am doing something”, “I do something”, or “Do I do something?” using the same words!1 But, what happens if you’re talking about something that already happened? If we want to say “I did something” or “did I do something?” then we need to use the past tense. The simplest form of this is called the “passé composé”, and it describes a single action in the past that has finished completely. Luckily, the biggest part of this tense is something that we already know really really really well: avoir + être in the present tense!!! Just like the name “passé composé”, the passé composé is made up of TWO different parts, or words. These are: avoir/être in the present tense2, and a past participle (complicated name, it sounds hard – really isn’t!) First, let’s remind ourselves of the present tense of avoir and être: avoir être je tu il/elle nous vous ils/elles Très bien! Now for the super tricky part.... The endings of the three major verb groups are ER, RE and IR We have to change these verb endings to make a past participle3. We do this by making: ER É Eg., manger mangé. IR IT RE U finir finit vendre vendu Change the following verbs into their past participles using the above rules: 1 Je fais quelquechose 2 If you were really wondering, être and avoir don’t really mean “to be” and “to have” in the same way when they are part of the passé composé – they are called “auxiliary verbs” or “helper verbs” because they just help us to make the past tense. 3 There are some that don’t follow the pattern, called irregular past participles. We will have to memorise them later. Parler: ___________ Dormir: ___________ Achétèr__________ Arriver ___________ Aller : __________ Rendre: ____________ Très bien! Ok, on y va Let’s put these two ideas together. Fill in this table using the correct form of avoir and a past participle made from the verb like in the example: Subject j’/je avoir past participle verb French/English ai mangé manger j’ai mangé – I ate. tu parler il/elle nous vous ils/elles finir visiter vendre chanter Très bien! You can construct the past tense using avoir. Write down the following sentences in either English or French: I ate the cake __________________________________ You (plural) sang a song __________________________________ Nous avons vendu la maison __________________________________ Jean-Luc a étudié le français __________________________________ Hmmm… hang on, didn’t I say you needed to use être somewhere?? The majority of verbs use avoir to make the passé composé. There are, however, a group that use être. The rules for these ones are a little bit different. They involve a beautiful castle in the far away land of Grammaire (never too far from our thoughts, of course!) This is called the “Castle of être” (original, I know). First, a little background.... Notice how all of the verbs above seem to involve something else besides the verb and the subject? (I ate the cake, You sang the song etc.). These are called transitive verbs because they contain an object. Some verbs don’t have another object involved, and these are called intransitive verbs (don’t worry about remembering the names, just remember the concept!) For example, “I arrived”. I can’t ‘arrive the cake’... I just.... arrive. There’s nothing else involved. This means that it is an intransitive verb and has to use être. Most intransitive verbs are about ‘movement’ (go, come, leave...) Now, back to that castle.... 2|Page An easy way to try and remember the verbs that use ÊTRE is to imagine the Castle of Être. When you live in the castle, various life events take place... each of these uses an “être verb” Draw the castle: It needs at least two towers, and big walls with some stairs!! VERBIES naître – to be born Now draw in your life movements and label the être verbs (stick figures are ok) You are born in the castle (and if you grow up there, ultimately, sadly you may also die in the castle). You can go to the castle or leave the castle. If you like you can remain forever or stay for a little while after you enter. If you do go out, you should make sure that you return before it becomes dark. You can climb the walls, but make sure that you don’t fall off because strange things happen in this castle! It’s better if you just go down the castle steps safely. Maybe rest a little on the way down if you get tired. Alternatively, you can hang out in the Tower of Reflexives. It’s always crowded there!! Phew! What a busy castle! There’s just one rule for all of these être past participles – they have to agree with the subject of the verb the same way your adjectives might. (Avoir past participles don’t agree with the subject!!) So, if you want to say “I went” then you need to choose from Je suis allée or Je suis allé depending on if you’re female or male. If there’s more than one person involved, and “we went”, then we pick from Nous sommes allés or Nous sommes allées. “She went” always has to be Elle est allée and “he went” always has to be Il est allé.. 3|Page Write the following sentences in French: I went to school _______________________________________ I came to the party ___________________________________ He was born* in 1953 ___________________________________ They went out last night ___________________________________ You (pl) fell down ___________________________________ *irregular – see below And these in English: Nous sommes partis vers 14h _______________________________ Nous sommes nés en 1995 _______________________________ Elle est descendue de l’autobus _______________________________ Elles sont sorties samedi _______________________________ Je suis venue à 15h _______________________________ Parfait! The last thing that you need to know is that some verbs have irregular past participles. Here is a list of some (there are patterns, and verbs stemming from verbs act the same way). You should add more as you come across them: étre été mettre mis conduire conduit vouloir voulu rire ri prendre pris construire construit ouvrir ouvert sourire souri apprendre appris produire produit offrir offert suffire suffi comprendre compris traduire traduit naître né suivre suivi dire dit faire fait acquérir acquis écrire écrit connaître connu conquérir conquis décrire décrit tenir tenu 4|Page