French past participles: 300-verb list

A past participle is the form used with avoir or être to build compound tenses. In j'ai parlé, parlé is the past participle. The same form returns in j'avais parlé, j'aurai parlé, and j'aurais parlé, so learning it once unlocks several tenses.

Regular French past participle rules

Common irregular past participles

The highest-frequency irregular forms are worth memorizing as families: être → été, avoir → eu, faire → fait, prendre → pris, mettre → mis, écrire → écrit, voir → vu, devoir → dû, pouvoir → pu, savoir → su, vouloir → voulu, venir → venu, tenir → tenu, ouvrir → ouvert, mourir → mort, and naître → né.

Compounds usually preserve the family pattern: prendre → pris, comprendre → compris, apprendre → appris; venir → venu, revenir → revenu, devenir → devenu.

Avoir, être, and agreement

Most verbs use avoir. A smaller movement/change-of-state group and all pronominal verbs use être. The auxiliary and the agreement rule are related but not identical topics: use the table below to find the auxiliary, then see the three past-participle agreement rules for gender, number, and preceding direct objects.

Common questions

What is a past participle in French?

A French past participle is a verb form such as parlé, fini, or pris. It combines with avoir or être to build compound tenses including passé composé, plus-que-parfait, futur antérieur, and conditionnel passé.

How do you form regular French past participles?

Regular -er verbs change to -é, regular -ir verbs change to -i, and regular -re verbs change to -u: parler → parlé, finir → fini, and vendre → vendu.

Do French past participles use avoir or être?

Most use avoir. A smaller group of movement and change-of-state verbs uses être, and all pronominal verbs use être. A few verbs use either auxiliary depending on meaning and transitivity.

When does a French past participle agree?

With être, it normally agrees with the subject. With avoir, it normally stays unchanged unless a direct object appears before the verb. Pronominal verbs require a separate direct-object check.