A friend of mine just recently asked me this question about the French past participle. Fortunately, I am the authority on this issue according to that person. The question was: when do you need to change the French past participle? This refers to those times where you must add an e or s to the end of a past participle. This is valid in any circumstance with a tense that uses the auxiliary verb. The most common one is passé composé. This is also valid for le plus-que-parfait or le futur antérieur. For simplicity’s sake, my examples will use passé composé.
It’s a very limited circumstance to need agreement, and there is some logic to why we do it. When must the past participle agree with something?
SUBJECT – PARTICIPLE agreement with Dr. Mrs. Vandertramp verbs
For the group that use être as an auxiliary verb, the participle must agree with the subject. The subject is the only option here because they are all movement verbs, for which it is impossible to have an object. Object-participle agreement does not exist here because objects do not exist with Dr. Mrs. Vandertramp.
Nous sommes allés aux États-Unis.
= We went to the United States.
Elle est venue chez moi pour dejeuner.
= She came to my house for lunch/to have lunch.
Les filles sont nées en France.
= The girls were born in France.
SUBJECT&OBJECT – PARTICIPLE agreement with reflexive verbs
All reflexive verbs use être as an auxiliary verb, and the participle must agree. By definition, subjects and objects are the same with reflexive verbs, so you can consider this subject-participle or object-participle agreement.
Nous nous sommes rasés au matin.
= We shaved (ourselves) in the morning.
Ma fille s‘est douchée quand elle est rentrée.
= My daughter took a shower when she got home.
The first agreement is because it’s reflexive. The second agreement is because it’s Dr. Mrs. Vandertramp.
Je ne sais pas quand les révolutions françaises se sont passées.
= I don’t know when the French revolutions happened.
OBJECT – PARTICIPLE agreement with direct object pronouns
If you use le, la, or les as pronouns in passé composé, you must agree those pronouns with the past participle. Of course, if the pronoun is le, you don’t need to add anything, so in reality the real work happens with la or les. Also, les can be problematic because it depends on context whether it is feminine (requiring “es” to the participle) or masculine (requiring just “s” to the participle).
This will be with avoir as the auxiliary verb because it is always in the avoir group if a direct object exists, unless it is the aforementioned reflexive group.
Also, be very careful that you do not do this for lui and leur, the indirect object pronouns.
Je te remercie pour les livres. Je les ai lus dès que j’ai eu le temps.
= I thank you for the books. I read them as soon as I had the time.
La fusée n’aura pas de problèmes. Nous l‘avons construite avec l’aide de notre personnel formidable.
= The rocket will not have any problems. We built it with the help of our great staff.
– As-tu vu les nouvelles? C’est très bizarre, n’est-ce pas?
– Ouais, je les ai vues.
=
– Did you watch the news? It’s real weird, isn’t it?
– Yeah, I saw them.
OBJECT – PARTICIPLE agreement with noun + que clauses (relative clauses)
You must agree an object with the French past participle when a clause describes a noun using que. For example, all of these must make agreement between the noun with the participle in French versions of these phrases: the lunch (that) I ate earlier, the friends (who) I met years ago, a dollar (that) I found on the ground. By definition, this only works with “que” and not “qui” because “qui” always means the noun is the subject. The agreement only happens with “que” because it’s only in this situation where the noun the is object of the attached clause.
Je te remercie pour les livres que tu m’as donnés il y a un mois.
= I thank you for the books that you gave me a month ago.
Pouvez-vous décrire la femme que vous avez vue à la scène de crime?
= Can you describe the woman that you saw at the scene of the crime?
Les questions que l’élève a écrites dans son cahier était trop longues selon le prof.
= The questions that the pupil wrote in his/her notebook were too long according to the teacher.
In summary, the participle agrees with:
- subject when you use a Dr. Mrs. Vandertramp verb
- subject and object when you use a reflexive verb
- object when you use a direct object pronoun
- object when you use a relative clause introduced with “que”
These are some precise circumstances, but natives will take notice. For the most part, pronunciation won’t change, but in the examples with “construite” and “écrites,” natives will instantly hear that you did not make the correct agreement if you say “construit” or “écrit,” which sound pretty different. For this reason, be careful. The French past participle contains some useful information for natives about the subject or object of the action.
You can find some more French explanations on my website and more language learning tips on my YouTube channel.
Keep on learning French! Bonne chance!
