#french help

Excellent, thank you!

Oh my goodness thank you so much, @eloandelleroy for saving me once again!

Who is she? What does she do? Why does anyone who knows anything about French know her?

Lemme tell you. She’s a little annoying and frustrating but man is she helpful. She’s always got your back. When in doubt, just refer to her, she’ll clear it up for you.

She lives a different life than most. While others live in the house of Avoir, she sits pretty in the house of Etre cause she bouji like that. Shes complicated like that, she doesn't follow the rules.

Now let's get for real cause I can't explain it using this metaphor anymore.

When you want to put things into past tense, you gotta use either Avoir (to have) or Etre (to be). Avoir is used most commonly, but in a special few cases, you gotta you Etre.

Let's start with the basics

AVOIR CONJUGATED

JE ‘AI

TU AS

IL/ELLE A

NOUS AVONS

VOUS AVEZ

ILS/ELLES ONT

ETRE CONJUGATED

JE SUIS

TU ES

IL/ELLE EST

NOUS SOMMES

VOUS ETES

ILS/ELLES SONT

Now we know how to conjugate the auxiliary verb! Yay!

In order to build a sentence in past tense you gotta have a past participle. There is a general rule on finding the past participles for any verb, but just like most things in french there are always exceptions.

For any verb that is not included in DRMRSPVANDERTRAMP, meaning the auxiliary used is Avoir, here’s how you would approach it:

For regular verbs ending in ER: Remove the “er” ending and replace with “é”

For regular verbs ending in IR: Remove the “ir” ending and replace with “i” 

For regular verbs ending in RE: Remove the “re” ending and replace with “u”

Next up, the Etre verbs and their past participles.

Let's break down DR MRS P VANDERTRAMP, both the verbs in the present tense and their past participles.

PRESENT TENSE- PAST PARTICIPLE

DEVENIR- DEVENU

REVENIR- REVENU

MOURIR- MORT (THIS ONE DOESN’T FOLLOW THE PATTERN, EASY TO FORGET)

RESTER- RESTÉ

SORTIR- SORTI

PASSER- PASSÉ

VENIR- VENU

ALLER- ALLÉ

NAITRE- NÉ (THIS IS A WEIRD ONE TOO, ALSO EASY TO FORGET)

DESCENDRE- DESCENDU

ENTRER- ENTRÉ

RENTRER- RENTRÉ

TOMBER- TOMBÉ

RETOURNER- RETOURNÉ

ARRIVER- ARRIVÉ

MONTRER- MONTRÉ

PARTIR- PARTI

So now we all know what an auxiliary is and what the past participles are for Etre verbs.

There’s a basic formula for how to form a phrase in the past tense, and it looks a little something like this:

SUBJECT + PRESENT TENSE AUXILIARY + PAST PARTICIPLE

example:

E- Henri ate an apple

FR- Henri a mangé une pomme

(This formula applies to both etre and avoir verbs)

That’s all for now. If there’s anything else you want to see, please let me know and I will try my best to help you out!