Voulez - Auxiliary Verbs

Auxiliary Verbs

There are two auxiliary verbs in French: avoir (to have) and être (to be), used to conjugate compound tenses according to these rules:

  • Transitive verbs (direct or indirect) in the active voice are conjugated with the verb avoir.
  • Intransitive verbs are conjugated with either avoir or être (see French verbs#Temporal auxiliary verbs).
  • Reflexive verbs (or "pronominal verbs") are conjugated with être.
  • être is used to form the passive voice. être is itself conjugated according to the tense and mood, and this may require the use of avoir as an additional auxiliary verb, e.g. Il a été mangé (It was eaten).

Compound tenses are conjugated with an auxiliary followed by the past participle, ex: j'ai fait (I did), je suis tombé (I fell). When être is used, the participle is inflected according to the gender and number of the subject. The participle is inflected with the use of the verb avoir according to the direct object, but only if the direct object precedes the participle, ex:

  • il a marché, elle a marché, nous avons marché (he walked, she walked, we walked)
  • il est tombé, elle est tombée, nous sommes tombés, elles sont tombées (he fell, she fell, we fell, they (fem.) fell)
  • Il a acheté une voiture. Voilà la voiture qu'il a achetée. (He bought a car. Here is the car he bought)

As stand-alone verbs, the conjugation of the two auxiliaries is listed in the table below:

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