Passé composé

The passé composé (French pronunciation: ​, compound past) is the most used past tense in the modern French language. It is used to express an action that has been finished completely or incompletely at the time of speech, or at some (possibly unknown) time in the past. The passé composé originally corresponded in function to the English present perfect, but is now used mainly as the equivalent of the simple past. The passé composé (French pronunciation: ​, compound past) is the most used past tense in the modern French language. It is used to express an action that has been finished completely or incompletely at the time of speech, or at some (possibly unknown) time in the past. The passé composé originally corresponded in function to the English present perfect, but is now used mainly as the equivalent of the simple past. The passé composé is formed using an auxiliary verb and the past participle of a verb. The passé composé is formed by the auxiliary verb, usually the avoir auxiliary, followed by the past participle. The construction is parallel to that of the present perfect (there is no difference in French between perfect and non-perfect forms). The passé composé is usually translated into English as a simple past tense, 'I saw', or as a present perfect, 'I have seen'. It could also be translated as emphatic past tense, 'I did see'.