B1 · The past
Participle agreement with avoir
If the direct object comes before the verb, the participle agrees.
At a glance
- Remember
- With avoir the participle only agrees if the object was there first.
- When
- Before the past
- The past
- Past linked to the present
- The present
- The future
- Completed in the future
The past — Something that happened, finished, and stays where it happened.
- Form
- j’ai écrit les lettresI have written the letters
- Signal words
- l’
- les
- que
- quel
- quelle
- Trap
- Wrong:Marie a écrite une lettre.Right:Marie a écrit une lettre.
Your turn
5 exercises on this topic. Your answers are checked in the browser; none of them leaves your device.
The form
| I have written the letters | j’ai écrit les lettres |
| I have written them | je les ai écrites |
| the letters I have written | les lettres que j’ai écrites |
| which letters did you write? | quelles lettres as-tu écrites ? |
| I have written to them | je leur ai écrit |
| I have eaten some | j’en ai mangé |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
An object pronoun before the verb triggers agreement.
Ta valise ? Je l’ai prise.Your suitcase? I took it.
In a relative clause with que the participle follows the noun it refers to.
Les fleurs que tu as achetées sont belles.The flowers you bought are beautiful.
In a question with quel the object comes first and the participle agrees.
Quelle robe as-tu choisie ?Which dress did you choose?
With an indirect object and with en nothing agrees.
Je leur ai téléphoné hier.I phoned them yesterday.
Example sentences
Cette chanson, je l’ai entendue à la radio.That song — I heard it on the radio.
Les clés ? Je les ai mises sur la table.The keys? I put them on the table.
La maison qu’ils ont construite est en bois.The house they built is made of wood.
Des erreurs ? Il en a fait beaucoup.Mistakes? He made a lot of them.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
Agreement follows the object, not the subject — with être it is the other way round, and that is exactly what gets mixed up. In Marie a écrit une lettre nothing agrees, even though Marie is a woman. In la lettre que Marie a écrite it does, and because of la lettre, not because of Marie.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
With avoir the participle normally stays as it is: Elle a mangé, Ils ont fini. There is one exception, and in writing you meet it constantly: when the *direct object comes before the verb*, the participle agrees with that object.
The direct object ends up before the verb in three cases: as a pronoun (la lettre ? je l’ai écrite), in a relative clause with que (la lettre que j’ai écrite) and in a question with quel (quelles photos as-tu prises ?).
Mostly you hear nothing of it: vu and vue sound the same. It becomes audible with participles ending in a consonant — écrit and écrite, pris and prise, fait and faite, mis and mise, ouvert and ouverte. English participles never change at all — «the letter I have written», «the letters I have written» — so this is entirely new.
There is no agreement with an indirect object or with en: Je leur ai parlé, Des pommes ? J’en ai mangé. And if the object comes after the verb, the basic case applies anyway: J’ai écrit la lettre.
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