Past Participle Agreement
Apply agreement rules for past participles: with être the participle agrees with the subject in gender and number; with avoir it agrees with a preceding direct object.
A lesson of French A2 — Elementary, in Passé Composé, about 10 minutes.
By the end of this lesson, you will apply the two agreement rules for past participles: agreement with the subject (être verbs) and agreement with a preceding direct object (avoir verbs).
Two Agreement Systems
Past participle agreement in French depends on which auxiliary you used.
| Auxiliary | Agreement Rule |
|---|---|
| être | Agree with the subject |
| avoir | Agree with a preceding direct object (if there is one) |
Most students learn the être rule first — it is simpler. The avoir rule is less common but appears in formal writing and in sentences with object pronouns.
Rule 1: Agreement with Être
With être verbs (the DR & MRS VANDERTRAMP group and all reflexives), the past participle acts like an adjective and agrees with the grammatical subject in gender and number.
| Subject | Past Participle Ending | Example |
|---|---|---|
| masculine singular | — | Il est parti. |
| feminine singular | -e | Elle est partie. |
| masculine/mixed plural | -s | Ils sont partis. |
| feminine plural | -es | Elles sont parties. |
More examples:
Marie est née en 1995. — Marie was born in 1995. Les filles sont arrivées en retard. — The girls arrived late. Nous (femmes) sommes allées au marché. — We (women) went to the market. Pierre et Jean sont restés. — Pierre and Jean stayed.
Mixed groups: when a group contains both masculine and feminine subjects, use the masculine plural form. This is the default in standard French.
Pierre et Marie sont allés au cinéma. (allés — masculine plural, because Pierre is in the group)
Rule 2: Agreement with a Preceding Direct Object (avoir)
With avoir verbs, the past participle normally stays unchanged.
J'ai mangé une pizza. — The pizza comes after the verb → no agreement. Ils ont vu les films. — No agreement.
However, when a direct object pronoun (le, la, les, me, te, nous, vous) or a relative pronoun (que) appears the verb, the past participle agrees with that object.