If you've ever said j'ai allé in front of a French speaker and seen them physically wince, this article is for you. The 14 être verbs are the single most common conjugation trap for English-speaking learners, and they're trivial once you drill them.
The closed list (14 verbs)
These are the only "regular" verbs in modern French that take être (not avoir) as their auxiliary in compound tenses. There are no others to memorize. All other verbs use avoir, except for pronominal verbs (covered below).
| Verb | Meaning | Past participle |
|---|---|---|
| aller | to go | allé |
| venir | to come | venu |
| arriver | to arrive | arrivé |
| partir | to leave | parti |
| entrer | to enter | entré |
| sortir | to go out, exit | sorti |
| monter | to go up | monté |
| descendre | to go down | descendu |
| naître | to be born | né |
| mourir | to die | mort |
| rester | to stay | resté |
| retourner | to return, go back | retourné |
| tomber | to fall | tombé |
| devenir | to become | devenu |
Plus the prefixed compounds, which inherit the être behavior of their base verb:
- rentrer (to come back home, compound of entrer)
- revenir (to come back, compound of venir)
- parvenir (to reach, succeed)
- survenir (to occur)
- repartir (to leave again)
The DR MRS VANDERTRAMP mnemonic
The most popular memory aid for the list. Each letter is the first letter of one of the verbs:
Descendre, Rentrer · Monter, Revenir, Sortir · Venir, Aller, Naître, Devenir, Entrer, Rester, Tomber, Retourner, Arriver, Mourir, Partir
Some teachers prefer the DR & MRS VANDERTRAMP spelling. Others use MRS VANDERTRAMP (12 letters, drops Descendre and Rentrer, which are still on the list). All versions are imperfect. The mnemonic gets you started; what makes it stick is drilling each verb in passé composé until j'ai allé physically sounds wrong.
An alternative mental image: picture a journey or a life. You're born (naître), you arrive (arriver), you enter (entrer) a house, go up (monter) the stairs, stay (rester), come down (descendre), leave (partir), go back (retourner), come back (revenir), fall (tomber), and eventually die (mourir). Image-based memory beats letter-based mnemonics for many learners.
Passé composé with être: the conjugation
The pattern is identical for all 14 verbs. Use the present indicative of être + the past participle:
| Pronoun | aller | partir |
|---|---|---|
| je | je suis allé(e) | je suis parti(e) |
| tu | tu es allé(e) | tu es parti(e) |
| il/elle | il est allé / elle est allée | il est parti / elle est partie |
| nous | nous sommes allé(e)s | nous sommes parti(e)s |
| vous | vous êtes allé(e)(s) | vous êtes parti(e)(s) |
| ils/elles | ils sont allés / elles sont allées | ils sont partis / elles sont parties |
The agreement rule
With être verbs, the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject. This is non-negotiable in writing.
- Feminine singular: add -e. Elle est allée.
- Masculine plural: add -s. Ils sont arrivés.
- Feminine plural: add -es. Elles sont parties.
For a female speaker writing about herself: Je suis allée à Paris. Don't drop the -e. DELF and TEF graders mark this every time. See more in past-participle agreement in French.
The transitive exception (the one most teachers forget)
Six of the 14 verbs can also be used transitively (with a direct object), in which case they switch back to avoir as their auxiliary:
| Verb | Intransitive (être) | Transitive (avoir) |
|---|---|---|
| monter | Je suis monté(e) = I went up | J'ai monté les valises = I carried up the suitcases |
| descendre | Je suis descendu(e) = I went down | J'ai descendu les bagages = I brought down the luggage |
| sortir | Je suis sorti(e) = I went out | J'ai sorti la poubelle = I took out the trash |
| rentrer | Je suis rentré(e) = I came home | J'ai rentré la voiture = I brought the car in |
| retourner | Je suis retourné(e) = I returned | J'ai retourné le livre = I returned/turned over the book |
| passer | Je suis passé(e) chez toi = I dropped by | J'ai passé l'examen = I took the exam |
This catches advanced learners. The rule: if there's a direct object, use avoir.
Pronominal verbs (the second être-using category)
All pronominal verbs (also called reflexive verbs) take être in the passé composé. Examples: se lever, se laver, s'habiller, se coucher, s'asseoir, se souvenir, s'amuser. Hundreds of them. The pattern:
| Pronoun | se lever |
|---|---|
| je | je me suis levé(e) |
| tu | tu t'es levé(e) |
| il/elle | il s'est levé / elle s'est levée |
| nous | nous nous sommes levé(e)s |
| vous | vous vous êtes levé(e)(s) |
| ils/elles | ils se sont levés / elles se sont levées |
The agreement on pronominal verbs is trickier: agreement happens with the reflexive pronoun only if it's a direct object.
- Elle s'est lavée (washed herself, direct object = herself, agreement applies, -e)
- Elle s'est lavé les mains (washed her hands, direct object = les mains, follows the verb, no agreement)
- Elles se sont parlé (spoke to each other, parler à = indirect object, no agreement)
For most B1-level use, focus on the simple cases: elle s'est levée, nous nous sommes habillé(e)s. The complex agreement cases are B2/C1 territory. See pronominal verbs in French for the deeper dive.
Common mistakes
1. J'ai allé
The defining error. Aller is être, not avoir. Drill it in passé composé until your mouth refuses to say j'ai allé. Repetition is the only fix; understanding the rule isn't enough.
2. Forgetting agreement on the speaker's own gender
A female candidate writing je suis parti instead of je suis partie loses easy points on every DELF and TEF writing task. Make a habit of checking every passé composé for subject agreement on être verbs.
3. Mixing être and avoir verbs in the same sentence
Je suis allé et j'ai mangé. That's correct. Two different auxiliaries because aller takes être and manger takes avoir. Don't try to make them consistent; they're independent choices per verb.
4. Using être with all motion verbs
Marcher, courir, voler, nager: all motion, all use avoir. The être list is closed; don't generalize the pattern.
How to drill these to reflex
- Recite the 14 daily for a week. Out loud. While brushing teeth. Past the conscious-memory stage and into the muscle-memory stage.
- Build 14 personal sentences in passé composé. Use your own life. Hier, je suis allé(e) au supermarché. Le mois dernier, mes parents sont venus chez moi. Personal = stickier.
- Daily typed-answer drill. 5 minutes a day in Bonjour Verbs focused on the être-verb passé composé. The app gives stepwise feedback when you pick the wrong auxiliary.
- Speak with a tutor weekly. Force production under pressure. iTalki tutors will catch and correct every j'ai allé.
After 4-6 weeks of this, you'll never say j'ai allé again. It's that mechanical.
Why this matters for exams
The être/avoir choice is the single most-graded item in DELF A2, DELF B1, GCSE Higher tier, and AP French writing sections. Every passé composé in your essay gets scanned. Get the 14 wrong in production and your morphosyntactic score drops a band. Drill them to reflex; reclaim the easy points.