Passé Composé with Être: DR MRS VANDERTRAMP and Agreement

In our list, the 22 verbs that take être on their own are aller, venir, rester, sortir, partir, arriver, passer, entrer, revenir, rentrer, retourner, monter, mourir, devenir, descendre, tomber, remonter, repartir, apparaître, redevenir, intervenir and naître. Another 10 are always used with se, such as se souvenir, se dépêcher, s'enfuir, se moquer, se méfier and se taire, and they take être too. Every other verb in the list takes avoir unless it's used with se. That includes être and avoir themselves: j'ai été, j'ai eu. To check a single verb, look it up in the French verb conjugation tables.

DR MRS VANDERTRAMP

DR MRS VANDERTRAMP is a mnemonic for the être verbs. Each letter starts one of 16 verbs, in this order:

Some versions add a P for passer, which takes être in a sentence like elle est passée chez moi. That version is DR and MRS P. VANDERTRAMP.

Verbs built on these take être as well. Three are already in the mnemonic (revenir, devenir and rentrer), and others follow the same rule, such as remonter, repartir and redevenir.

The house of être

The house of être (la maison d'être) draws the same verbs as a house, where each verb is a movement. You arrive at the door and leave by it (arriver, partir), go in and come out (entrer, sortir), and go up and down the stairs (monter, descendre). Someone falls from the window (tomber), and someone stays inside (rester). Someone is born and someone dies (naître, mourir). You go and come (aller, venir), go back (retourner), come back home (rentrer) and pass by (passer). Devenir, to become, is in the house too.

Most of the verbs come in pairs of opposites, so learning one tells you the other. If arriver takes être, so does partir.

Past participle agreement with être

With être, the participle agrees with the subject, as an adjective would: il est allé, elle est allée, ils sont allés, elles sont allées. A mixed group takes the masculine plural, as in Paul et Marie sont partis.

With je, tu, nous and vous, the ending depends on who is speaking or being spoken to. A woman writes je suis allée, and a man writes je suis allé. Vous can be one person or several, so it's vous êtes allée to one woman and vous êtes allés to a group.

Reflexive verbs always take être

Every verb used with se takes être: elle s'est lavée, ils se sont parlé. The participle agrees with se when se is the direct object, which in practice means it agrees with the subject. Elle s'est lavée has the -e because she washed herself.

There's no agreement with the subject in two cases. The first is when a direct object follows the verb. In elle s'est lavé les mains, the object is les mains, and se is indirect. The second is when se is an indirect object because the verb takes à: parler à, téléphoner à, sourire à, écrire à, plaire à and demander à. With these, se means “to each other” or “to oneself”, and the participle doesn't change: ils se sont parlé, elles se sont téléphoné.

Verbs that take être or avoir

Six verbs from the list take être for the movement and avoir when they have a direct object: sortir, monter, descendre, passer, rentrer and retourner.

With avoir, the participle doesn't agree with the subject, which is why it's elle a sorti la poubelle but elle est sortie.

Past participle agreement with avoir

With avoir, the participle never agrees with the subject: elles ont mangé. It agrees only with a direct object, and only when that object comes before the verb. The object comes first in sentences like these:

• after the relative que: la lettre que j'ai écrite
• with an object pronoun: je les ai vues, je l'ai envoyée
• after a question word: quelles photos a-t-il prises ?

When the object comes after the verb, there's no agreement: j'ai écrit la lettre. The same letter takes écrite in one sentence and écrit in the other, because only one of them puts the object first.

Irregular past participles

A regular participle swaps the infinitive's -er, -ir or -re for -é, -i or -u: parler gives parlé, finir gives fini and vendre gives vendu. The French verb groups guide shows each group's forms. In our 600 verbs, 106 have a participle that doesn't come from that swap. They fall into families by ending:

A few stand on their own, such as été, né, mort and dû. Être and avoir take avoir themselves, so it's j'ai été and j'ai eu. Né and mort go with être, since naître and mourir are in DR MRS VANDERTRAMP: elle est née.

How to learn the passé composé with être

Learn the list first, and leave the agreement rules with avoir for last.

1. Learn the 16 verbs of DR MRS VANDERTRAMP, then add passer. If the letters don't stick, use the house of être, where most verbs come with their opposite.
2. Add the verbs used with se. Every one takes être, from se laver to se souvenir.
3. Learn the six verbs that switch with an object attached. Learn sortir la poubelle beside sortir, and the auxiliary comes with it.
4. Make être participles agree like adjectives. It's elle est allée and ils sont allés, and Paul et Marie sont partis for a mixed group.
5. Leave agreement with avoir for last. It matters only when the object comes before the verb: la lettre que j'ai écrite.

The passé composé quiz drills each step on its own: the Être verbs set for the list, Reflexive verbs for se and Verbs that switch for the six pairs. Its Agreement mode tests the participle in short everyday sentences, with the reason after every answer. For a class, the passé composé worksheets print the same sets in five exercises with an answer key. Start with the Être verbs set, and Practice my mistakes will show you which of the 17 to drill next.

Frequently asked questions

Licenses and credits

Conjugation tables come from English Wiktionary through kaikki.org (CC BY-SA 4.0). Verbs are ranked by Hermit Dave's FrequencyWords list, built from OpenSubtitles 2018 (CC BY-SA 4.0).