Le passé composé. Dr & Mrs Vandertramp. La maison d'être.

Learning the past tense in French (verb + past participle = passé composé)

Most words use the verb avoir but there are a few exceptions, which use être and are listed below:

DR & MRS VANDERTRAMP

"This is perhaps the most popular mnemonic device for être verbs in the United States. Personally, I find it redundant since it includes some derivatives, but if it works for you, go for it."

Devenir — Devenu(e)(s) — to become
Revenir — Revenu(e)(s) — to come back
&
Monter* — Monté(e)(s) — to climb/mount/go up
Rester — Rentré(e)(s) — to stay
Sortir* — Sorti(e)(s) — to exit/go out/put/bring outside

Venir — Venu(e)(s) — to come
Aller — Allé(e)(s) — to go
Naître — Né(e)(s) — to be born
Descendre* — Descendu(e)(s) — to descend
Entrer — Entré(e)(s) — to enter
Rentrer* — Rentré(e)(s) — to re-enter
Tomber — Tombé(e)(s) — to fall
Retourner* — Retourné(e)(s) — to return/go back
Arriver — Arrivé(e)(s) — to arrive
Mourir — Mort(e)(s) — to die
Partir — Part(e)(s) — to depart/leave

From French.about.com

There are actually lots more though! Here are all the ones I found:
(not sure if this is 100% correct)

Décéder — Décédé(e)(s) — to decease
Demeurer — Demeuré(e)(s) — to abide
Intervenir — Intervenu(e)(s) — to intervene
Parvenir* — Parvenu(e)(s) — to reach a goal/succeed
Passer* — Passé(e)(s) — to pass/spend time
Redescendre — Redescendu(e)(s) — to re-descend
Redevenir — Redevenu(e)(s) — to become again
Remonter — Remonté(e)(s) — to climb/mount/go up again
Renaître — René(e)(s) — re-birth/to come back to life
Repartir — Repart(e)(s) — to depart/leave again
Repasser — Repassé(e)(s) — to pass again
Ressortir — ressorti(e)(s) — to exit/go out/put/bring outside again
Retomber — Retombé(e)(s) — to fall again
Souvenir — Souvenu(e)(s) — to remember
Survenir — Survenu(e)(s) — to occur/happen/arise unexpectedly


Accoucher*
Accourir*
Advenir*
Apparaître*
Appartenir
Bienvenir
Choir
Contrevenir
Convenir*
Décéder
Dechoir*
Déménager
Demeurer*
Disconvenir
Disparaître*
Échoir*
Éclore*
Intervenir
Maintenir
Obvenir
Paraître*
Pourrir
Provenir
Prévenir
Ressouvenir
Retenir
Revenir
Réapparaître
Redescendre
Reparaître
Résulter*
Ressusciter
Ressortir
Trépasser*




"Another, more phonetic rhyming mnemonic exists for remembering the être-conjugators, which omits passer for reasons of multiple-word-meaning. (Passer can conjugate into passé composé with avoir, but means something different there from its usual meaning.):

Entré, rentré, arrivé,
Resté, monté, né, allé,
Tombé, mort, et retourné
These are words we all can say

Parti, sorti, descendu,
Revenu, devenu, et venu
These verbs with être are "conjugués"
when in the passé composé.

From Everything2

For all verbs conjugated with être, the past participle has to agree with the subject in gender and number in all of the compound tenses

Examples:

Je suis allé — I (m) went
Je suis allée — I (f) went
Tu es allé — You (m) went
Tu es allée — You (f) went
Il/On est allé — He/One went
Elle est allée — She went
Nous sommes allés — We (m) went
Nous sommes allées — We (f) went
Vous êtes allé — You (ms) went
Vous êtes allée — You (fs) went
Vous êtes allés — You (mp) went
Vous êtes allées — You (fp) went
Ils sont allés — They (m) went
Elles sont allées — They (f) went

Reflexive verbs

Reflexive verbs also use être. The format for reflexive verbs in the perfect tense is: personal pronoun (je, tu, il/elle/on, nous, vous, ils/elles) + reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, nous, vous, se) + être + past participle.

Ex: je me suis lavé (I washed myself)

Verbs conjugated with both être and avoir

* These verbs are conjugated with avoir when a direct object follows the verb.

Ex: Elle est sorti avec des amis.
Elle a sorti la voiture du garage.

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Using the image of a house to remember all the words that use être instead of avoir.

Some cute pictures I found of La maison d'être (the house of 'être'):

LHS French Classes

Tartanson

U Texas

Gantguillory

Gail Hyatt

Lisanne

Cliff notes

David Bessent (Flickr) (a bit crazy and rude)

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Good lesson here (but the pronunciation is shocking)



Another video:



Passé composé use verbs of two kinds
Most with avoir use verbs, which is fine
But some verbs call for something that's new
Auxilliary être is all that will do

And those verbs are:
arrivé retourné parti sorti allé
venu revenu devenu entré
passé resté tombé né monté
descendu rentré et mort
are the last ones to day

Verbs that use être are important to know
But conjugating être is even more so

Je suis
Tu es
Il est
Elle est
On est
Nous sommes
Vous êtes
Ils sont
Elles sont
Hooray!

But the verbs are:
arrivé retourné parti sorti allé
venu revenu devenu entré
passé resté tombé né monté
descendu rentré et mort
are the last ones to day