Grammar: Irregular past participles

ByFast French

Here is a list of French verbs with irregular past participles, presented in alphabetical order:

  1. Être – été (to be)
  2. Avoir – eu (to have)
  3. Boire – bu (to drink)
  4. Connaître – connu (to know)
  5. Courir – couru (to run)
  6. Devoir – dû (to have to, must)
  7. Dire – dit (to say)
  8. Écrire – écrit (to write)
  9. Faire – fait (to do, to make)
  10. Lire – lu (to read)
  11. Mettre – mis (to put)
  12. Mourir – mort (to die)
  13. Naître – né (to be born)
  14. Ouvrir – ouvert (to open)
  15. Pouvoir – pu (to be able to, can)
  16. Prendre – pris (to take)
  17. Savoir – su (to know)
  18. Voir – vu (to see)
  19. Vouloir – voulu (to want)

These verbs have irregular past participles, meaning that they do not follow the regular pattern of adding -é for -er verbs, -i for -ir verbs, and -u for -re verbs. Memorizing these irregular past participles will greatly assist you in forming compound tenses and expressing past actions accurately in French.

You will need these past participles to form the Passé Composé, the Past Conditional, the Plus-que-parfait, the Futur Antérieur, and various other verb tenses.

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