Passé Composé with Être in French

In Brief

A small group of French verbs forms the passé composé with être rather than avoir: elle est arrivée, nous sommes partis. The past participle (the verb form such as arrivé or parti) normally matches the subject: add -e for feminine, -s for plural, or -es for feminine plural. Learn the verbs as complete patterns, because movement alone does not reliably predict the auxiliary.

Overview

The passé composé is the everyday French past tense used for completed events: someone arrived, left, fell, was born, or went home. Most French verbs build it with avoir, but an important group uses être. This distinction has no direct equivalent in English: “she arrived” does not tell an English speaker to choose a special helping verb, while French requires elle est arrivée.

An auxiliary is a helping verb used to build a tense. In ils sont restés, sont is the auxiliary and restés is the past participle. At A2, the useful beginner rule has two parts: memorize the common verbs that take être, and make their participles agree with the subject (the person or thing that performs or undergoes the event).

These verbs often express movement, a change of place or state, or remaining somewhere. That is a memory aid, not a complete rule: marcher “to walk” expresses movement but takes avoir (j'ai marché), while rester “to stay” takes être. The safest habit is therefore to learn aller as être allé, venir as être venu, and so on.

How It Works

The basic pattern

Use the present tense of être, followed by the past participle:

subject + être + past participle agreeing with the subject

Subject	Form of être	Example with partir	English
je	suis	je suis parti(e)	I left
tu	es	tu es parti(e)	you left
il	est	il est parti	he left
elle	est	elle est partie	she left
nous	sommes	nous sommes parti(e)s	we left
vous	êtes	vous êtes parti(e)(s)	you left
ils	sont	ils sont partis	they left
elles	sont	elles sont parties	they left

Parentheses are only a learning convention; they are not normally written in a real sentence. A woman writes Je suis partie, not Je suis parti(e). For a mixed or all-male group, traditional standard spelling uses the masculine plural: Paul et Anna sont partis. For an all-female group, use parties.

The core verbs

A traditional mnemonic, DR MRS VANDERTRAMP, gathers these common verbs. It is useful, though the letters are not themselves a grammar rule.

Infinitive	Past participle	Meaning
devenir	devenu	to become
revenir	revenu	to come back
monter	monté	to go up
rester	resté	to stay
sortir	sorti	to go out
venir	venu	to come
aller	allé	to go
naître	né	to be born
descendre	descendu	to go down
entrer	entré	to enter, go in
rentrer	rentré	to return, go home
tomber	tombé	to fall
retourner	retourné	to return, go back
arriver	arrivé	to arrive
mourir	mort	to die
partir	parti	to leave

Several related verbs follow the same pattern as their base verb: repartir → elle est repartie, retomber → il est retombé, and redevenir → ils sont redevenus. Learn these as vocabulary rather than assuming that every verb with a prefix behaves identically.

Agreement with the subject

With these être verbs, the participle normally changes in writing to reflect the subject's grammatical gender and number:

Subject type	Ending	Example
masculine singular	no added ending	Marc est arrivé.
feminine singular	-e	Lina est arrivée.
masculine or mixed plural	-s	Marc et Lina sont arrivés.
feminine plural	-es	Lina et Zoé sont arrivées.

Some participles already end in a consonant or another form, but the same agreement principle applies: mort, morte, morts, mortes; né, née, nés, nées; venu, venue, venus, venues.

The extra ending is frequently silent. Il est arrivé and elle est arrivée sound alike in ordinary speech, as do il est parti and ils sont partis. This makes agreement easy to miss when listening, so practise it deliberately in writing. In a few forms, the difference can be heard: mort and morte do not have exactly the same pronunciation.

Questions, negatives, and adverbs

The two-part verb stays together as a tense. In a negative sentence, ne ... pas surrounds the auxiliary:

• Elle n'est pas venue. — She did not come.
• Ils ne sont jamais retournés là-bas. — They never went back there.

Short adverbs often come between the auxiliary and participle:

• Nous sommes bien arrivés. — We arrived safely.
• Il est déjà parti. — He has already left.

In everyday conversation, speakers commonly omit ne: Elle est pas venue. Recognize this in informal speech, but use the full ne ... pas pattern in careful writing.

Examples in Context

French	English	Note
Je suis parti hier matin.	I left yesterday morning.	Masculine singular speaker
Je suis partie hier matin.	I left yesterday morning.	Feminine singular speaker
Elle est née en France.	She was born in France.	Irregular participle née
Ils sont restés à la maison.	They stayed home.	Masculine or mixed plural
Nous sommes descendues à la prochaine station.	We got off at the next stop.	All-female group
Luc et Émilie sont arrivés en retard.	Luc and Émilie arrived late.	Mixed group, traditional masculine plural
Mes sœurs sont revenues dimanche.	My sisters came back on Sunday.	Feminine plural
Tu es déjà allé au Québec ?	Have you ever been to Quebec?	Masculine person addressed
Vous êtes rentrée tard, Madame ?	Did you get home late, ma'am?	Formal singular feminine vous
On est tombés près de l'entrée.	We fell near the entrance.	Informal on meaning “we”
Le train est parti à huit heures.	The train left at eight.	A thing can also be the subject
Pourquoi est-elle sortie si tôt ?	Why did she go out so early?	Formal question with inversion
Après le dîner, ils sont montés dans leur chambre.	After dinner, they went up to their room.	Intransitive monter takes être
Il est devenu médecin.	He became a doctor.	Change of state
Elles ne sont jamais retournées dans ce café.	They never went back to that café.	Negative phrase around sont

The form nous sommes descendu(e)s is useful in notes when the speakers' genders are unknown, but choose one real spelling in normal prose: descendus, descendues, or, for one speaker describing themself within a known group, the form required by that group.

Common Mistakes

1. Using avoir with a core être verb

• Wrong: Elle a arrivée à midi.
• Right: Elle est arrivée à midi.
• Why: In its ordinary intransitive use, arriver forms the passé composé with être. “Intransitive” means there is no direct object receiving the action.

2. Forgetting feminine or plural agreement

• Wrong: Mes amies sont parti tôt.
• Right: Mes amies sont parties tôt.
• Why: Amies is feminine plural, so parti needs both -e and -s.

3. Choosing the auxiliary from the idea of movement

• Wrong: Nous sommes marché pendant deux heures.
• Right: Nous avons marché pendant deux heures.
• Why: Not every movement verb takes être. Marcher, courir, voyager and nager normally take avoir.

4. Making the participle agree with the nearest noun

• Wrong: Paul est arrivée avec ses sœurs.
• Right: Paul est arrivé avec ses sœurs.
• Why: Agreement is with the subject, Paul, not with ses sœurs after the preposition avec.

5. Adding the agreement to the auxiliary

• Wrong: Elles sontes venues.
• Right: Elles sont venues.
• Why: Sont never changes for gender. Agreement appears on the participle venues.

6. Always using être with sortir, monter, or descendre

• Wrong: J'ai sorti à neuf heures.
• Right: Je suis sorti à neuf heures.
• Why: “I went out” has no direct object and takes être. However, J'ai sorti la poubelle (“I took out the trash”) is correct because la poubelle is a direct object.

Usage Notes

On and agreement

The pronoun on is grammatically singular, so its auxiliary is always est: on est arrivé. When on informally means “we,” careful writing often lets the participle reflect the actual group: Marie et moi, on est arrivées for two women, or Paul et moi, on est arrivés for a group containing a man. Practices vary by register, but on sont is never standard.

Singular and plural vous

Vous êtes can address one person politely or several people. The participle reveals the intended number and, in writing, gender:

• Vous êtes arrivé, Monsieur. — one man
• Vous êtes arrivée, Madame. — one woman
• Vous êtes arrivés, tout le monde ? — a plural mixed group
• Vous êtes arrivées, Mesdames. — a plural all-female group

English does not preserve the same distinctions

French elle est partie can mean “she left,” “she has left,” or, in some contexts, “she went away.” Do not translate the auxiliary word for word as “is.” Here est helps form a past tense; it does not mean that she “is left.” Similarly, French uses the present tense for “has been somewhere”: Tu es déjà allé à Lyon ? rather than treating aller exactly like English “have been.”

Beyond the Basics: Verbs That Can Switch Auxiliary

You do not need to master every exception immediately, but one pattern is important enough to recognize early. Several verbs in the mnemonic can take avoir when they are used transitively—that is, when they act directly on an object. With no direct object, they generally take être and describe the subject's movement. With a direct object, avoir is used and the meaning often becomes “take something up/down/out,” “bring something in,” or “go through/pass something.”

French	English	Note
Elle est montée au troisième étage.	She went up to the third floor.	No direct object: être
Elle a monté les valises.	She carried the suitcases upstairs.	les valises is the direct object: avoir
Nous sommes descendus du train.	We got off the train.	du train begins with a preposition; it is not a direct object
Nous avons descendu l'escalier.	We went down the stairs.	l'escalier is a direct object
Il est sorti après le déjeuner.	He went out after lunch.	No direct object
Il a sorti son téléphone.	He took out his phone.	Direct object son téléphone
Je suis rentré à six heures.	I got home at six.	No direct object
J'ai rentré les chaises.	I brought the chairs inside.	Direct object les chaises
Ils sont retournés à Paris.	They went back to Paris.	Movement of the subject
Ils ont retourné la crêpe.	They flipped the pancake.	Direct object and different sense

Passer also varies by construction and meaning: elle est passée par Bordeaux (“she went through Bordeaux”), but elle a passé trois jours à Bordeaux (“she spent three days in Bordeaux”) and elle a passé un examen (“she took an exam”). This is one reason many modern courses prefer learning verbs in complete phrases instead of treating the mnemonic as a closed, flawless list.

Pronominal verbs—forms with me, te, se, nous, or vous, such as se lever—also use être: elle s'est levée. Their agreement has additional rules involving direct objects, so they are best studied as the separate next topic rather than folded into the beginner list here.

In formal writing, agreement endings remain required even when pronunciation does not reveal them. Contemporary inclusive writing may use forms such as arrivé·es when referring to a group without choosing the traditional masculine generic. Conventions differ by institution and publication; learners should first be able to produce the standard forms arrivés and arrivées and recognize inclusive alternatives when encountered.

Practice Tips

1. Learn each verb with its auxiliary and participle. Make cards such as venir → être venu and naître → être né, not cards containing only the infinitive. This prevents the English habit of treating every past verb alike.
2. Run one sentence through all four agreement patterns. Write il est venu, elle est venue, ils sont venus, elles sont venues. Repeat with parti, né, mort, and arrivé until the endings become automatic.
3. Contrast switchable verbs in pairs. Say je suis sorti beside j'ai sorti le chien, or elle est montée beside elle a monté les valises. Ask “Is there a direct object?” before choosing the auxiliary.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Passé Composé — reviews the general formation and use of this past tense.
• Next step: Reflexive Verbs in Past — extends être formation to pronominal verbs and introduces more detailed agreement rules.