You've mastered describing the present in French. Now, let's talk about what's already happened. The most common way to do this is with the passé composé, a compound tense used for completed actions. Think of it as the French equivalent of saying "I did," "I have done," or "I went."

As a compound tense, it has two parts: an auxiliary (or helper) verb and a past participle. The formula is simple.

The auxiliary verb, either avoir (to have) or être (to be), is conjugated in the present tense. The vast majority of verbs use avoir. The past participle is formed based on the main verb's ending. For regular verbs:

• Verbs ending in -er change to -é. (parler → parlé)
• Verbs ending in -ir change to -i. (finir → fini)
• Verbs ending in -re change to -u. (vendre → vendu)

Let's see it in action with avoir. Imagine you're telling a coworker about a project you finished.

While most verbs pair with avoir, a special group of verbs, mostly related to motion or a change of state, uses être. A popular mnemonic for remembering these is DR & MRS VANDERTRAMP.

There's one crucial rule when using être: the past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject. This means you might need to add an -e for a feminine subject, an -s for a plural subject, or -es for a feminine plural subject.

• Il est allé au cinéma. (He went to the cinema.)
• Elle est allée au cinéma. (She went to the cinema.)
• Ils sont allés au cinéma. (They [masc.] went to the cinema.)
• Elles sont allées au cinéma. (They [fem.] went to the cinema.)

Also, all reflexive verbs (like se laver, to wash oneself) use être as their auxiliary in the passé composé. For example, Je me suis levé (I got up).

We know the past participle agrees with the subject when using être. But there's a twist with avoir. The past participle must agree with a preceding direct object. A direct object answers the question "what?" or "whom?" after the verb. If this object comes before the verb in the sentence, agreement is required.

This happens most often with direct object pronouns (me, te, le, la, nous, vous, les). Let's tell a story about a weekend trip to Paris to see this in action.

Here's another example:

Il a acheté les baguettes. (He bought the baguettes.) Les baguettes ? Il les a achetées. (The baguettes? He bought them.)

Because les represents the feminine plural noun baguettes, we add -es to the past participle acheté.

Finally, be careful with some VANDERTRAMP verbs. They can use avoir when they take a direct object. This changes their meaning slightly. For example, descendre means "to go down" with être, but "to take something down" with avoir.

Now let's test your understanding of how to form the past.

Building the past tense is a huge step toward fluency. It allows you to move from describing your world to telling stories about it.