{"id":29398,"date":"2017-12-05T05:09:30","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T04:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=29398"},"modified":"2021-01-17T17:53:26","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T16:53:26","slug":"french-grammar-putting-an-addition-on-the-the-house-of-etre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-grammar-putting-an-addition-on-the-the-house-of-etre\/","title":{"rendered":"French Grammar – Putting an addition on the “the house of \u00eatre”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00eaFrench uses helping verbs to form the past tense form known as the pass\u00e9 compose<\/em> (the composed past)*.<\/em> Most verbs use avoir <\/em>as their helping verb while a select group though use \u00eatre<\/em>. While this rule is generally true, there is a special case when even verbs that usually take avoir<\/em> use \u00eatre<\/em> to form the past tense.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There are different tricks for remembering which verbs – all of which relate to movement or a change of state\/place \u2013 always use \u00eatre. <\/em>For some, Dr. & Mrs. Van der Tramp<\/a> do the trick. For others the “house of \u00eatre” <\/em>helps.<\/p>\n

In any case, all verbs that use \u00eatre<\/em> start the pass\u00e9 compose in the same way:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Je suis \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\nNous sommes \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tu es \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\nVous <\/strong>\u00eates <\/strong>\u2026<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Il\/elle\/on est \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\nIls\/elles sont \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Je suis all\u00e9 au cin\u00e9ma ce week-end**. <\/strong>\/ I went to the movies this weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n

Vous \u00eates rest\u00e9s*** \u00e0 la maison. <\/strong>\/ You stayed home.<\/em><\/p>\n

Elles sont arriv\u00e9es de Nice hier matin.<\/strong> \/ They arrived from Nice yesterday morning.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All the other verbs, as noted, use avoir.<\/em> They start:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
J\u2019ai \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\nNous avons \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tu as \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\nVous avez \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Il\/elle\/on a \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\nIls\/elles ont \u2026<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Tu as achet\u00e9 une nouvelle voiture\u00a0?<\/strong> \/ You bought a new car\u00a0?<\/em><\/p>\n

Il a d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu le film plusieurs fois.<\/strong> \/ He already saw the movie a number of times.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nous avons mang\u00e9 au restaurant ensemble pour l\u2019anniversaire de Pierre.<\/strong> \/ We ate at the restaurant together for Peter\u2019s birthday.<\/em><\/p>\n

The exception to this hard and fast rule of verb use comes in with reflexive or pronominal verbs<\/a>. These verbs which relate to actions that one takes on oneself (verbs that are, in other words, self-reflective), like verbs in the House of <\/em>\u00eatre<\/em>, also use the verb \u00eatre<\/em> when forming the pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9.<\/em> You may have noticed two of them last week in my post about naps<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So for example, while you would say J’ai lav\u00e9 ma nouvelle voiture hier. <\/strong>\/ I washed my new car yesterday. <\/em>You would say Je me suis lav\u00e9 les**** mains avant de manger.<\/strong> \/ I washed my hands before eating. <\/em>Or Le film hier soir m’a beaucoup amus\u00e9. <\/strong>\/ The film last night really amused me. <\/em>But Je me suis bien amus\u00e9(e)***** au cin\u00e9ma hier.<\/strong> \/ I had a fun time at the movies yesterday.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* There is another French past tense form known as le pass\u00e9 simple. <\/em>Rarely used today in spoken French, you will often encounter it in written text, especially novels and other types of stories like in this post<\/a> from my fellow blogger Elizabeth Schermund.
\n** Note that according the new rules of spelling<\/a> in French you no longer need to include the hyphen in week-end<\/em>. It\u2019s a habit I\u2019m afraid I just can\u2019t bring myself to break.
\n*** Remember that in the pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9, <\/em>verbs conjugated with etre<\/em> need to agree in gender and number with the subject of the sentence. In this example, vous is plural<\/a>
\n<\/em>**** Remember that when you’re talking about parts of your own body, you generally use the definite article instead of a possessive adjective.
\n***** Since I am male, je me suis amus\u00e9 <\/em>is the correct form. If I were female, je me suis amus\u00e9e<\/em> would be correct.<\/p>\n

Image Copyright: By TomasBat – Microsoft Paint, CC BY 3.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=3921996<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

\u00eaFrench uses helping verbs to form the past tense form known as the pass\u00e9 compose (the composed past)*. Most verbs use avoir as their helping verb while a select group though use \u00eatre. While this rule is generally true, there is a special case when even verbs that usually take avoir use \u00eatre to form…<\/p>\n

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