Une écrivaine francophone: perfect tense verbs like ouvrir, écrire & traduire. | French

Starter quiz

Verbs expressing a change of state, location or condition use which auxiliary verb to form the perfect tense?

'être' ✓
Match together the two halves of each broken phrase.

Elle

⇔

est allée à la bibliothèque. ✓

Il

⇔

a visité la Tour Eiffel. ✓

Nous

⇔

avons fait le tour du musée. ✓

Vous

⇔

êtes venues hier. ✓

Ils

⇔

sont descendus la rue. ✓

Elles

⇔

ont regardé un match de foot. ✓
The SSCs [é], [i], [u], [SFC] and [SFe] are all pronounced in regular ...

'past participles' ✓
Match together the verb 'suivre' (to follow) in the present tense.

je

⇔

suis ✓

tu

⇔

suis ✓

il/elle/on

⇔

suit ✓

nous

⇔

suivons ✓

vous

⇔

suivez ✓

ils/elles

⇔

suivent ✓
Which of the following verbs use 'être' as the auxiliary verb?

devenir ✓

mourir ✓

danser

partir ✓

parler
Translate the following: he became a writer because he loves reading

1

⇔

il

2

⇔

est

3

⇔

devenu

4

⇔

écrivain

5

⇔

parce qu'il

6

⇔

aime

7

⇔

la lecture

Exit quiz

Which verbs form their past participle like 'ouvrir', 'traduire' and 'écrire'?

finir, vendre, prendre

découvrir, détruire, décrire ✓

venir, entendre, suspendre
Match the French word to its grammatical function.

le chapitre

⇔

noun ✓

petit

⇔

adjective ✓

raconter

⇔

infinitive ✓

raconté

⇔

past participle ✓

beaucoup

⇔

adverb ✓

sur

⇔

preposition ✓
Find the English translations for these infinitives.

traiter

⇔

to treat, handle, to deal with ✓

mourir

⇔

to die, dying ✓

inscrire

⇔

to write down, writing down ✓

détruire

⇔

to destroy, destroying ✓

admettre

⇔

to admit, to confess ✓

surprendre

⇔

to surprise, surprising ✓
Identify the correct past participle to complete the phrase: Hier, nous avons fait du sport puis nous sommes __________ à la bibliothèque.

allés ✓

allé

allées ✓

allée
Translate 'les' in the following commands: 'écris-les!' and 'suis-les!'

'them' ✓
Complete the following sentence: Hier, nous avons __________ de la lecture. (Yesterday we read.)

'fait' ✓

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Lesson Details

Key learning points

The past participles of verbs like ouvrir become ouvert e.g. je découvre in the perfect tense becomes j'ai découvert.
The past participles of verbs like traduire become traduit e.g. tu détruis in the perfect tense becomes tu as détruit.
The past participles of verbs like écrire become écrit e.g. elle décrit becomes in the perfect tense elle a décrit.
Past participles used with être must agree in gender and number with the subject of the verb.

Common misconception

Only irregular verbs such as 'faire' and 'avoir' have unusual past participles.

Verbs like 'ouvrir', 'traduire' and 'écrire' form their past participles differently to regular IR and RE verbs and should be seen as different types of verb when learning verb patterns.

Keywords

Auxiliary verb - a form of ‘avoir’ or ‘être’ used to form the perfect tense
Past participle agreement - when the past participle matches the subject in gender and number