Appendix:French auxiliary verbs
(Redirected from Appendix:French verbs whose compound tenses are formed using être)
Main category: French auxiliary verbs
Auxiliary verbs are verbs that accompany the main verb in a clause in order to make distinctions in tense, mood, voice or aspect.
French auxiliary verbs
[edit]Avoir
[edit]- Avoir is the principal verb used to form the perfect tense. It combined with the past participle to describe actions that happened (usually only once) in the past.
- J’ai mangé les chips ― I've eaten the chips/crisps
- J’ai lu ta lettre ― I read your letter
Être
[edit]- Être is used with certain verbs derived from Latin deponent verbs to form the perfect tense. See below.
- Il est tombé ― he fell
- Être is also used to form the passive voice
- Il est poursuivi par la police ― he is being followed by the police
- To change the tense or, only the conjugation of être changes
- Il sera arrêté demain ― he will be arrested tomorrow
Faire
[edit]Faire is used to mean to do in the sense "oblige/coerce someone to do something". Always followed by the infinitive of a verb
- Il m’a fait pleurer ― he made me cry
- J’aime les hommes qui me font rire
- I like men that make me laugh
Aller
[edit]- Je vais manger dans une heure ― I'm going to eat in an hour
- Nous allions partir, mais on a oublié de fermer la porte
- we were going to leave, but we forgot to close the door
Rendre
[edit]Rendre is used like faire above, but it is always qualified by an adjective, not a verb. It mostly corresponds to the English auxiliary use of make.
- Il m’a rendu très triste ― he made me very sad
- Elle me rendra très joyeux ― she will make me very happy
French verbs which take être
[edit]The following verbs take être when forming compound tenses (pluperfect and present perfect). These verbs are all intransitive in French. Certain verbs however use avoir when used transitively.
- arrêter - to stop
- monter[1] - to climb/go up
- rester - to stay
- sortir[1] - to go out
- venir - to come
- aller - to go
- naître/naitre - to be born
- descendre[1] - to go down
- (redescendre - to go back down)
- entrer - to enter
- (rentrer - to return)
- retourner[1] - to send back / to return
- tomber - to fall
- (retomber to fall again)
- arriver - to arrive
- mourir - to die
- partir - to leave or part
- passer[1] - to pass / to happen
- paraître - to appear (that)
- (apparaître - to appear)
- (disparaître - to disappear)