All verb conjugations in French can be divided into two distinct catagories "Les temps simples" and "Les temps composés"
Les temps simples are considered simple because they are made up of only one word.
Composed tenses are composed of two seperate verbs, être or avoir conjugated in the simple tense followed by the past participle.
Each simple tense has a composed tense couterpart. The composed tenses show that the action happened before its simple tense counterpart.
I know that at first this seems daunting, but it insn't as complicated as it seems. Once you know the simple tenses and the passé composé, all of the other tenses follow the same rules.
To review each tense click on the name of the tense below
LES TEMPS SIMPLES
(mode)
LES TEMPS COMPOSÉS
Le plus-que parfait
1. être ou avoir à l’imparfait 2. participe passéLe conditionnel passé
1. être ou avoir au conditionnel 2. participe passéAlthough rare in the French language it is important to be able to use La voix passive.
Voice (active or passive) indicates the relationship between a subject and verb. In the passive voice, the action described by the verb is being done to the subject by an agent.