You've seen that in compound tenses, such as Le Passé Composé (Indicatif), the majority of verbs use avoir as their auxiliary. See for example Conjugate regular -er verbs (+ avoir) in the compound past in French (Le Passé Composé).
For those verbs, the past participle never agrees with the subject.
However, it is different when it comes to verbs using être as the auxiliary in Le Passé Composé (Indicatif), such as the Conjugate coming and going verbs (+ être) in the compound past in French (Le Passé Composé) and Conjugate mourir, naître, décéder, devenir, rester (+ être) in the compound past in French (Le Passé Composé).
Learn how to agree the past participle with verbs using être as auxiliary in French
Look at these verbs using être as auxiliary in Le Passé Composé (Indicatif):
When être is used as the auxiliary in compound tenses such as Le Passé Composé (Indicatif), the past participle must always agree in gender and number with the subject of the verb.
The endings follow this pattern:
| Masculine | Feminine | |
| Singular | --- | -e |
| Plural | -s |
-es |
Remember that when the group includes men AND women, you will always use the masculine plural ending -s.
Here are some examples:
Marco et Paulo ont dit: "Nous sommes allés en France l'année dernière."Marco and Paulo said: "We went to France last year."
Case of agreement with "vous"
As you know, the French vous can be used to refer either to more than one person (plural you), or in a polite way to a single person (formal you).
With (+ être) verbs in Le Passé Composé (Indicatif), the agreement will depend on which vous is being used:
- with the plural vous, the past participle will take -s or -es depending on the gender of the people in the group it refers to:
- with the formal/singular vous, the past participle will remain unchanged or take an -e depending on the gender of the person it refers to:
Want to make sure your French sounds confident? We’ll map your knowledge and give you free lessons to focus on your gaps and mistakes. Start your Brainmap today »
Learn more about these related French grammar topics
Examples and resources
