A completed trip in French: went and arrived
You are telling someone about a trip that is over. For aller and arriver in these uses, build the past with present-tense être plus allé or arrivé, and match the ending to the person or people. With conversational on meaning “we”, keep est even for a group.
Start from what you know
Recall Je vais au café: “I am going to the café”. Au café names the destination; au is à + le. À la maison means “home”; hier means “yesterday”. J’ai travaillé hier means “I worked yesterday”: ai is the present form of avoir and travaillé is a past participle. A present auxiliary can therefore help express a past event.
Keep the subject: je = I, tu = one familiar you, nous = we. In everyday conversation on often means we, but it has other meanings too. Être gives je suis, tu es, on est, nous sommes.
Je vais au café.
J'ai travaillé hier.
Two verbs, two places
Aller means “go”; arriver means “arrive”, reaching the destination. Listen to both verbs and the two places. Café here is the place, not the drink. In the examples à la maison is the place reached, “home”.
A completed trip: être + participle
Compare Je vais au café with Je suis allé au café: the second reports a completed trip. With these two verbs use être, not avoir: je suis allé, je suis arrivé. Allé and arrivé are the past participles; do not use the infinitives aller and arriver after suis here.
The first café and home examples are spoken by a man; the next version of each is spoken by a woman. She writes allée and arrivée. English “I went” and “I arrived” do not mark this difference. The added -e does not change the pronunciation of these participles.
Je suis / On est / Nous sommes allé(e)(s) / arrivé(e)(s) au café / à la maison
Je suis allé au café.
Je suis allée au café.
Je suis arrivé à la maison.
Je suis arrivée à la maison.
On est allés au café.
On est allées au café.
Nous sommes arrivés à la maison.
Nous sommes arrivées à la maison.
Written agreement: who travelled?
The left column is masculine singular or a male/mixed group; the right is feminine singular or an all-female group. With these uses of être, the participle agrees with the subject: base form for masculine singular, -e for feminine singular, -s for masculine plural, -es for feminine plural. Allé, allée, allés, allées sound alike; so do arrivé, arrivée, arrivés, arrivées. This is a reading table, with no audio.
On meaning “we” takes est, but the participle reflects the group: On est allés for a male/mixed group, On est allées for women. Nous takes sommes. Do not write on sont. The shorthand on est allé(s) leaves the context open: without -s, on can refer to an unspecified single person; it does not mean that a known group is singular. We practise the group meaning here.
A phone call between friends
On the phone, a friend asks a man about his outing and his arrival home. Tu marks the familiar address. The questions keep statement word order; the question is heard in the intonation and shown by ?. Listen and answer with je suis. For a woman, change allé to allée and arrivé to arrivée.
- Ainformal
Tu es allé au café ?
- B
Je suis allé au café.
- Ainformal
Tu es arrivé à la maison ?
- B
Je suis arrivé à la maison.
Reference only: the traditional être list
Recognition only: this traditional reference list is not a memorisation task. In order: aller = go; arriver = arrive; partir = leave; venir = come; revenir = come back; devenir = become; entrer = enter; rentrer = go back in/home; sortir = go out; monter = go up; descendre = go down; retourner = go back; rester = stay; tomber = fall; naître = be born; mourir = die; passer = pass/go by. The second column gives the masculine singular participle.
These uses take être. Derived verbs and pronominal verbs extend the inventory, so this is not an exhaustive dictionary list. Some listed verbs take avoir when used with a direct object: do not turn it into “every movement verb takes être”. Here you only need aller and arriver. No audio or practice is attached to this reference table.
| Verb: recognition only | Participle: masculine singular |
|---|---|
| aller | allé |
| arriver | arrivé |
| partir | parti |
| venir | venu |
| revenir | revenu |
| devenir | devenu |
| entrer | entré |
| rentrer | rentré |
| sortir | sorti |
| monter | monté |
| descendre | descendu |
| retourner | retourné |
| rester | resté |
| tomber | tombé |
| naître | né |
| mourir | mort |
| passer | passé |
Your turn: report the trip
Before revealing the examples, say that your male/mixed group went to the café, using on; then say it for a group of women. Next say that you arrived home together, using nous, first for the male/mixed group, then for women. Check and listen to the four answers in that order.
For your own outing, reuse Je suis allé/allée au café and Je suis arrivé/arrivée à la maison. The task stays the same: completed trip, être, and an ending that matches who travelled. Practise again later if the endings still need thought.
On est allés au café.
On est allées au café.
Nous sommes arrivés à la maison.
Nous sommes arrivées à la maison.