Être ou avoir au passé composé : le choix

Unité GR-60 · campagne 6 · je suis sorti, j'ai sorti le chien ; je me suis levé.

The passé composé is an auxiliary plus a participle. The auxiliary is avoir for almost every verb — and être for two groups, which are worth knowing as lists because nothing in the verb's form announces them. The choice then decides the agreement: with être, the participle agrees with the subject.

The two être groups

1. About twenty verbs of movement or change of state — the subject goes somewhere, or becomes something:

Learn them as these five pairs, then add the five that stand alone — tomber, rester, passer, retourner, devenir — and the compounds built on any of them: revenir, rentrer, remonter, repartir, parvenir, redescendre.

Elle est arrivée. Ils sont partis. Nous sommes restés. Elle est née en 1990.

Not every verb of movement is on the list: marcher, courir, voyager, nager, danser take avoir — j'ai couru. The list is short and closed; learn it rather than reason from meaning.

2. Every pronominal verb, whatever it means: je me suis levé, elle s'est souvenue, ils se sont parlé. The agreement follows the pronoun's function — see Me, te, se, nous, vous (P49.pronoun-systems.12).

The six verbs that switch to avoir

Sortir, monter, descendre, rentrer, passer, retourner take avoir when they have a direct object — then they are no longer about the subject moving, but about moving something:

Agreement follows the auxiliary

• With être, the participle agrees with the subject: Elle est partie. Ils sont venus. Elles sont tombées.
• With avoir, it agrees only with a direct object placed before the verb (GR-10, GR-14): Les valises ? Je les ai montées. — and never with the subject: Elle a sorti le chien, not sortie.

Also with être: the passive, and some tenses

The same auxiliaries build every compound tense — plus-que-parfait (elle était partie), futur antérieur (ils seront arrivés), conditionnel passé (je serais venu) — so the choice is made once per verb, not once per tense. Do not confuse it with the passive, which is être

• participle for any verb: La lettre est envoyée (GR-36).

The errors to watch

If your first language is Russian

Russian has no auxiliary in the past — она пришла is one word, with gender and number already on it. French splits it into an auxiliary and a participle, and the participle still shows gender and number with être — elle est venue — exactly where Russian shows it: пришла. The être verbs are the ones where the French participle behaves like the Russian past.

Minimal pairs. One change between the two sentences, and what it does:

Loading the exercise...

Checking your progress...