Learn French: Nous avons joué au tennis hier.

In French, the most common past tense is the passé composé, and it is made of two parts. First, you need a helping verb—here, it is avons (we have). Then, you add the main action word, which is joué (played). So, nous avons joué literally translates to "we have played."

How do we form the word joué?

Joué comes from the regular verb jouer (to play). To make this past tense form (called a past participle) for regular verbs ending in -er, you simply drop the -er ending and replace it with -é.

Why is it au tennis instead of just joué tennis?

In French, when you talk about playing a sport or a game, you must use the preposition à after the verb jouer. Because the word for tennis is masculine (le tennis), the words à and le squeeze together to become au. You are literally saying "we played at the tennis."

Should I pronounce the 's' in Nous avons?

Yes, but as a "z" sound! Normally, the 's' at the end of nous is silent. However, because the next word (avons) starts with a vowel, the 's' wakes up and connects the two words with a "z" sound (pronounced "noo zah-vohn"). This connection is called a liaison.