Regular Past Participle Formation

The good news for beginners: the past participle of most French verbs is fully predictable from the infinitive. Three patterns — one for each verb group — cover thousands of regular verbs, including every newly coined verb in French history. Once you have these three patterns automatic, you can build the past participle of any new -er, regular -ir, or regular -re verb on first sight.

This page drills the three patterns and shows their pronunciation, spelling traps, and the small handful of orthographic adjustments that affect a few sub-classes. The complete reference for the irregular Group 3 forms (which run to about a hundred verbs) lives on a separate page: Irregular Past Participles.

Pattern 1: -er → -é

Verbs ending in -er form their past participle by replacing the -er with -é. This pattern covers more than 90% of French verbs — every verb in Group 1, including all newly coined verbs (googler → googlé, liker → liké, poster → posté).

The double-é trap: créer

A small but notorious wrinkle in the -er pattern: verbs whose stem already ends in é (like créer) keep that é when adding the participle's é, producing a double é.

The double-é spelling is jarring but correct. Créé is a single past participle with two acute accents — the first belongs to the stem, the second is the participle ending.

Reflexive -er verbs

Pronominal verbs (se laver, se lever, se rencontrer) follow the same -er → -é rule, but the past participle agreement (when être conjugates them in compound tenses) makes the form pick up an -e, -s, or -es depending on the subject.

The base form is always levé; agreement adds the appropriate suffix. See Past Participle Agreement for the full system.

The classic homophone trap: parler vs. parlé

The single biggest spelling pitfall in French is the -er / -é / -ez / -ais set, all of which sound roughly like eh: parler (infinitive), parlé (past participle), parlez (you-formal present), parlais (imparfait je/tu). The four forms are pronounced near-identically, so the writer must decide on grammatical grounds which one to write.

The rule: after the auxiliary avoir or être, you write -é. J'ai parlé, never j'ai parler. After a preposition, you write -er (infinitive). Pour parler, never pour parlé.

If you cannot tell which form you need, substitute a different verb whose forms differ in spelling: replace parler / parlé with finir / fini. J'ai fini makes sense, so j'ai parlé (not parler) is correct. Pour finir makes sense, so pour parler is correct.

Pattern 2: regular -ir → -i

Verbs in Group 2 — the regular -ir verbs that take the -iss- infix in the present tense (je finis, nous finissons, je choisis, nous choisissons) — form their past participle by replacing -ir with -i.

Important: not all -ir verbs follow this pattern

Many French -ir verbs are not Group 2; they belong to the irregular Group 3 and have a different past participle. The diagnostic is the nous form of the present tense:

• Group 2 (-iss-): finir → nous finissons → past participle in -i (fini).
• Group 3 (no -iss-): partir → nous partons (no -iss-) → past participle still in -i (parti) but follows different conjugation patterns elsewhere.
• Group 3 (no -iss-, irregular ending): venir → nous venons → past participle in -u (venu); ouvrir → nous ouvrons → past participle in -ert (ouvert).

The point is that the -ir ending in the infinitive does not by itself tell you the past participle. You must check the -iss- test or memorise the irregular forms. The list of Group 3 -ir verbs is on the Irregular Past Participles page.

A useful coincidence: even most Group 3 -ir verbs ending in -i in the past participle (partir → parti, dormir → dormi, sortir → sorti) follow the same surface pattern as Group 2. So in practice, an -ir verb whose past participle ends in -i is overwhelmingly likely to follow this pattern, even if its other conjugations are irregular.

Pattern 3: regular -re → -u

Verbs ending in -re that follow the regular pattern form their past participle by replacing -re with -u. This covers a smaller but very important set of verbs — most of them in the -endre / -ondre / -andre family.

Beware: not all -re verbs follow this pattern

Many -re verbs are irregular in Group 3 and form their past participle differently:

• prendre, comprendre, apprendre → pris, compris, appris (in -is, not -u)
• mettre, promettre, permettre → mis, promis, permis
• dire, lire, écrire, faire → dit, lu, écrit, fait
• être → été

These verbs only end in -re superficially; they belong to subgroups with their own past-participle endings. See the Irregular Past Participles page for the full lists.

French versus English: separate forms, separate roles

A structural difference worth highlighting: in English, the past tense and the past participle are often identical for regular verbs and many irregular ones — I walked / I have walked, I finished / I have finished, I lost / I have lost. The single form walked serves both jobs. French keeps these jobs in separate forms of the verb:

• parler (infinitive) → je parlais (imparfait), je parlai (passé simple), parlé (past participle)
• finir (infinitive) → je finissais, je finis (passé simple), fini (past participle)
• vendre (infinitive) → je vendais, je vendis (passé simple), vendu (past participle)

This means English speakers have to separate the participle from the past tense in their mind. The English form spoke is not the French past participle parlé — it is the equivalent of one of the finite past tenses (j'ai parlé, je parlais, je parlai, depending on aspect). The form spoken is the closest English equivalent of parlé: it appears only after have, in passives, and as an adjective.

If your native intuition collapses past tense and participle (as English does), drill yourself to keep them separate when learning a French verb. Each French verb has a past participle that is its own form, distinct from any other tense.

Pronunciation: the -é, -i, -u contrast

The three regular endings are pronounced clearly differently and easily heard:

• -é (parlé): /e/ — like the é in café. The mouth is slightly smiling, lips spread.
• -i (fini): /i/ — like ee in see. The lips are spread tight; the sound is high and front.
• -u (vendu): /y/ — like German ü or Dutch uu. There is no English equivalent; the lips are rounded and protruded while the tongue is in the i position. This is the sound English speakers most often miss; vendu sounds nothing like vendoo in English.

Listening practice with these three endings is one of the highest-yield exercises for ear training in French. They appear constantly in compound tenses, and learning to distinguish them quickly improves your comprehension of spoken French.

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: Writing the infinitive (-er) where the past participle (-é) belongs.

Mistake 2: Using -er after a preposition because the participle sounds similar.

Mistake 3: Forgetting the second é in créé.

Mistake 4: Treating an irregular -ir verb as Group 2.

Mistake 5: Writing -u where an irregular verb wants -is or -it.

Key takeaways

• Three regular patterns cover most French past participles: -er → -é, -ir (Group 2) → -i, -re → -u.
• These three endings are predictable on first sight from the infinitive — there is nothing to memorise except the pattern itself.
• The -er / -é / -er (infinitive) homophone trap is the single biggest spelling pitfall in French: after avoir, write -é; after a preposition, write -er.
• Not all -ir verbs are Group 2; check the nous form for the -iss- infix. Without it, the verb is irregular (Group 3).
• Many -re verbs are irregular: prendre, mettre, dire, écrire, faire, être form their past participles in -is, -it, or in completely irregular ways.
• The past participle is distinct from any past tense in French; English speakers must keep the two roles separate in their minds, even though English collapses them.
• The three regular endings are pronounced clearly differently (/e/, /i/, /y/) and learning to hear the difference dramatically improves spoken-French comprehension.