Grammatical Rule:

The Past Tense is used to describe an action in the past that occurred for a specifc and defineable time,

The past tense is a composed tense, which means it uses several words to express its meaning.

The first word is the auxiliary word. The majority of the time it is conjugated with the present tense of avoir, though sometimes it is conjugated with Être for a lesson on the "non-transitive" verbs that are conjugated with être, click here.

The second word is the past participle of the action verb. For a lesson on those, click here.

You will note many different kinds of past participles.

• -er verbs replace the -er with é
• -ir verbs replace the -i
• -re verbs replace the -re with -u

There are many irregulars and you should note them on a case by case basis as you come across them on this site.

Examples:

Audio:

• Jacques Brel: Les Bonbons
• Carla Bruni: Quel qu'un m'a dit
• Jacques Dutronc : J'ai tout lu, tout vu, tout bu
• Saloon: Ne Rien Voir
• TTC: Ambition

Video

• Shrek: "I'm making waffles dialogue"
• The Simpsons : The Film "Trailer"