The perfect tense with avoir and êtreForming the perfect tense with avoir

How to make a past participle for regular verbs used with avoir:

Choose the verb you want to use.

For verbs ending in -er, take off -er and add -é:

parler (to speak) → parl + é → parlé = spoken

For verbs ending in -ir, take off -ir and add -i:

choisir (to choose) → chois + i → choisi = chosen

For verbs ending -re, take off -re and add -u:

vendre (to sell) → vend + u → vendu = sold

How to form the perfect tense with avoir

Once you have formed your past participle, you need to select the correct part of avoir you want to use.

1. You must choose a part of avoir in the present tense, eg:

2. Now add your chosen past participle:

• j’ai + parlé = I spoke/I have spoken
• nous avons + choisi = we chose/we have chosen
• il a + vendu = he sold/he has sold

Common irregular past participles used with avoir for the perfect tense

Many common verbs don’t follow the rule for how to form a past participle, so you need to learn them.

However, they are used in exactly the same way with the correct part of avoir, eg:

• j’ai vu - I saw
• tu as pris - you took
• nous avons voulu - we wanted

Verb practice with avoir in the perfect tense

Choose the correct verb forms:

Translation

Last year, I spent my summer holidays in France with my family. We were lucky because the weather was nice the whole time. And of course I got sunburnt…

We did a few visits in the region and in the last week we visited a lot of museums.

We spent some time at the beach and swam in the Mediterranean. The water was very warm. I walked by the sea a lot. It was great! I loved my holidays!