Agreement Rules for French Past Participles with Être

You write Elle est allé and pause. Something feels off, but you can’t remember whether the extra -e matters, whether ils needs -s, or why reflexive verbs seem to follow a different set of rules every time. French past participle agreement with être is one of those topics that looks small on paper and causes outsized hesitation in real life.

Quick answer: when a verb takes être in the passé composé or another compound tense, the past participle usually agrees with the subject in gender and number. That means allé, allée, allés, allées depending on who did the action. Reflexive verbs often follow this pattern too, but some need extra attention because agreement can depend on whether there’s a direct object.

If you’ve already read our guides on why some French verbs use être in the passé composé and avoir vs être mistakes in the French past tense, this is the next step: not choosing the auxiliary, but making the participle match correctly.

The core rule: with être, the participle agrees with the subject

This is the rule you want to automate first.

When a verb uses être in a compound tense, the past participle agrees with the subject in gender and number.

Singular and plural agreement

• masculine singular: no extra ending
• feminine singular: add -e
• masculine plural: add -s
• feminine plural: add -es

Take aller in the passé composé:

Examples:

• Il est arrivé en retard. (He arrived late.) 🔊
• Elle est arrivée en retard. (She arrived late.) 🔊
• Ils sont partis tôt. (They left early.) 🔊
• Elles sont parties tôt. (They left early.) 🔊

The spelling changes matter even when pronunciation doesn’t. In speech, allé, allée, allés, allées often sound identical. That’s why English-speaking learners can understand the rule but still miss it in writing. If that spelling-pronunciation mismatch keeps tripping you up, our post on French pronunciation and spelling mismatch in verbs will help.

At VerbPal, we train this as a writing problem, not just a recognition problem. If you only click the right answer, silent endings stay fuzzy. If you have to type elle est allée and elles sont allées from memory, the contrast starts to stick.

Pro Tip: Don’t memorise the rule as an abstract sentence. Drill mini-sets: il est allé / elle est allée / ils sont allés / elles sont allées. In VerbPal, we built drills around active production so you practise the exact contrast your brain tends to blur.

Which verbs usually take être?

Most learners meet this rule through the classic “house of être” or DR MRS VANDERTRAMP-style lists. The exact mnemonic varies, but the practical point stays the same: a relatively small set of common intransitive verbs often takes être in compound tenses.

Common examples include:

• aller — to go
• venir — to come
• arriver — to arrive
• partir — to leave
• entrer — to enter
• sortir — to go out
• monter — to go up
• descendre — to go down
• naître — to be born
• mourir — to die
• rester — to stay
• retourner — to return
• tomber — to fall
• passer — to pass by
• rentrer — to come back

Examples with agreement:

• Ma sœur est née en 1998. (My sister was born in 1998.) 🔊
• Mes frères sont nés en France. (My brothers were born in France.) 🔊
• Claire est rentrée tard. (Claire came back late.) 🔊
• Paul et Luc sont rentrés tard. (Paul and Luc came back late.) 🔊

If you want the full auxiliary logic, see our guide to DR MRS VANDERTRAMP: être verbs and our French conjugation tables.

Watch out for verbs that can take avoir or être

Some verbs can use avoir or être depending on meaning and whether they take a direct object. That’s where learners often overapply the agreement rule.

More pairs:

• Ils sont montés. (They went up.)

• Ils ont monté les valises. (They carried the suitcases up.)

• Elle est descendue. (She went down.)

• Elle a descendu l’escalier. (She went down the stairs / descended the staircase.)

• Je suis passé devant le café. (I passed by the café.)

• J’ai passé deux heures ici. (I spent two hours here.)

This is exactly the kind of contrast we want learners to practise in full sentences. In VerbPal, we don’t separate “auxiliary choice” from “agreement” as if they were unrelated facts. You produce the whole form, because in real French you need both decisions at once.

For a deeper look at one of the most confusing examples, see Does descendre use avoir or être?.

Pro Tip: First decide the auxiliary. Only then decide agreement. If the verb is using avoir, don’t apply the “agree with the subject” rule automatically.

How to add the endings correctly

The mechanics are simple once you know what to match.

The four written forms

Using partir as an example:

• parti — masculine singular
• partie — feminine singular
• partis — masculine plural
• parties — feminine plural

Examples:

• Mon père est parti. (My father left.) 🔊
• Ma mère est partie. (My mother left.) 🔊
• Mes parents sont partis. (My parents left.) 🔊
• Mes tantes sont parties. (My aunts left.) 🔊

Agreement with mixed groups

If the subject includes at least one masculine noun or refers to a mixed-gender group, standard written French uses the masculine plural.

• Paul et Marie sont arrivés. (Paul and Marie arrived.)
• Mes amis et mes amies sont venus. (My male and female friends came.)

Agreement with names and nouns

You don’t need a pronoun for the rule to work. The participle agrees with the actual subject.

• La voiture est tombée en panne. (The car broke down.) 🔊
• Les clientes sont entrées. (The customers came in.) 🔊

This sounds obvious, but it’s a common writing error: learners see a masculine-looking participle as the “default” and forget to look back at the subject.

If you’re building this skill for long-term retention, don’t just reread the four endings. We use spaced repetition with the SM-2 algorithm inside VerbPal so the forms come back right before you’re likely to forget them. That’s much more effective than cramming parti / partie / partis / parties once and hoping it stays there.

Pro Tip: When you write a sentence with être, point back to the subject before you finish the participle. That two-second check catches most agreement mistakes.

Reflexive verbs: same auxiliary, trickier agreement

This is where learners start to feel that French is changing the rules mid-game. It isn’t, but reflexive verbs add one extra layer: the reflexive pronoun can function as a direct object, an indirect object, or sometimes not really as an object at all.

The headline rule is:

• reflexive verbs use être in compound tenses
• the participle often agrees with the subject
• but not always, because agreement depends on the grammatical role of the reflexive pronoun or the presence of a direct object

If you want the broader reflexive picture, our post on why reflexive verbs always use être pairs well with this one.

Case 1: agree when the reflexive pronoun is a direct object

With many everyday reflexive verbs, agreement happens because the subject is effectively acting on itself directly.

• Elle s’est levée. (She got up.) 🔊
• Ils se sont couchés tôt. (They went to bed early.) 🔊
• Marie s’est assise. (Marie sat down.) 🔊

These are the forms most learners meet first, so it’s easy to assume all reflexive verbs work like this.

Case 2: no agreement when the reflexive pronoun is indirect and a direct object follows

This is the classic exception zone.

• Elle s’est lavé les mains. (She washed her hands.) 🔊
• Ils se sont parlé. (They spoke to each other.) 🔊
• Elles se sont téléphoné. (They called each other.) 🔊

Why no agreement?

• In Elle s’est lavé les mains, the direct object is les mains. The pronoun se is indirect: she washed the hands to herself.
• In Ils se sont parlé, parler à quelqu’un takes an indirect object, so se is indirect.
• In Elles se sont téléphoné, téléphoner à quelqu’un also takes an indirect object.

Case 3: agreement if a direct object comes before the verb

This is the advanced extension of the same logic.

Compare:

• Elle s’est lavé les mains. (She washed her hands.)
• Les mains qu’elle s’est lavées étaient froides. (The hands that she washed were cold.)

In the second sentence, les mains is the direct object and it appears before the participle through que. That triggers agreement: lavées.

Another example:

• Ils se sont écrit. (They wrote to each other.)
• Les lettres qu’ils se sont écrites étaient longues. (The letters that they wrote to each other were long.)

Here écrites agrees with lettres because the direct object comes before the participle.

This is also why passive study is not enough. Reflexive agreement is a decision process. In VerbPal, we make you produce forms across common patterns—regular verbs, irregulars, reflexives, and even the subjunctive—so you learn to spot what the object is doing instead of memorising one oversimplified rule.

Pro Tip: For reflexive verbs, don’t ask only “Is it with être?” Ask “What is the direct object here?” That one question solves most advanced agreement problems.

The most common exceptions and traps

“Exceptions” here usually means “places where learners apply the basic être rule too broadly.” These are the ones worth memorising.

1. Reciprocal verbs with indirect meaning

Some reflexive-looking verbs express actions people do to each other, but the verb itself takes an indirect object.

• Ils se sont parlé. not parlés
• Elles se sont souri. not souries
• Nous nous sommes téléphoné. not téléphonés
• Vous vous êtes écrit. not écrits unless a preceding direct object changes the structure

Examples:

• Elles se sont souri pendant la réunion. (They smiled at each other during the meeting.) 🔊
• Nous nous sommes parlé hier soir. (We spoke to each other last night.) 🔊

2. Body-part constructions

These are extremely common and very testable.

• Elle s’est brossé les dents. (She brushed her teeth.)
• Il s’est cassé la jambe. (He broke his leg.)
• Elles se sont lavé les cheveux. (They washed their hair.)

No agreement there, because the direct object follows: les dents, la jambe, les cheveux.

But:

• La jambe qu’il s’est cassée… (The leg that he broke…)
• Les dents qu’elle s’est brossées… (The teeth that she brushed…)

Now agreement appears because the direct object comes first.

3. Verbs that change auxiliary with meaning

As mentioned earlier, some verbs use être in one meaning and avoir in another.

That matters because if you accidentally choose the wrong auxiliary, you may apply the wrong agreement rule too.

• Elle est sortie. (She went out.)

• Elle a sorti les clés. (She took out the keys.)

• Ils sont passés devant chez moi. (They passed by my place.)

• Ils ont passé trois jours à Lyon. (They spent three days in Lyon.)

4. Pronominal verbs that are always lexicalised

Some verbs are mostly learned in reflexive form and usually agree in the expected way:

• Elle s’est souvenue. (She remembered.)
• Ils se sont enfuis. (They fled.)
• Elle s’est méfiée de lui. (She distrusted him.)

These are easier because there usually isn’t a separate direct object competing for your attention.

5. Spoken French hides the error

In many cases, you won’t hear the difference:

• elle est arrivé vs elle est arrivée
• ils sont parti vs ils sont partis

That means listening alone won’t reliably teach you this pattern. You need active written production too. That’s one reason we focus so heavily on output in VerbPal: recognising a correct form is much easier than producing it from scratch. If you’re still mostly studying by reading charts, our post on why conjugation tables are slowing you down explains the gap.

Pro Tip: Build a personal “danger list” of 10 reflexive verbs and 10 être verbs you actually use. Repeating your own high-frequency set beats rereading a giant rule page.

Put it into practice

A simple decision process you can use every time

When you’re writing or speaking and need to decide agreement, run through this sequence:

Step 1: Which auxiliary is it?

Is the verb using être or avoir?

• Elle est arrivée. (She arrived.) → être
• Elle a mangé. (She ate.) → avoir

Step 2: If it’s être, is it a regular être-verb or a reflexive verb?

Regular être verb:

• agree with the subject

Reflexive verb:

• check whether the reflexive pronoun is direct or indirect
• check whether there is a direct object after the verb
• if a direct object comes before the participle, agreement may happen with that object

Step 3: Match gender and number

Ask who the subject is, or what preceding direct object controls agreement.

• feminine singular → -e
• masculine plural → -s
• feminine plural → -es

Step 4: Write the whole chunk, not just the participle

Instead of thinking only about allée, think:

• elle est allée (she went)
• elles sont allées (they went)
• elle s’est levée (she got up)
• elle s’est lavé les mains (she washed her hands)

This chunk-based approach is how adults build fluency faster. Isolated grammar facts decay quickly; complete patterns stick. That’s also why our drills inside Learn French with VerbPal are organised around full verb production across tenses, irregulars, reflexives, and the subjunctive. Lexi the dog even pops up with reminders when a pattern is about to trip you.

Pro Tip: Use a fixed checklist until it feels automatic. Accuracy first, speed second. Speed comes from repetition, not from skipping the process.

High-frequency examples worth memorising

If you want this rule to show up correctly in your own French, memorise forms you will actually use. Here are some of the most useful.

Everyday être verbs

• Je suis arrivé. / Je suis arrivée. (I arrived.)
• Tu es parti. / Tu es partie. (You left.)
• On est sortis. (We went out / people went out.)
• Elle est née à Paris. (She was born in Paris.)
• Ils sont venus en train. (They came by train.)

Everyday reflexive verbs

• Je me suis levé. / Je me suis levée. (I got up.)
• Elle s’est couchée tard. (She went to bed late.)
• Nous nous sommes rencontrés à Lyon. (We met in Lyon.)
• Ils se sont parlé après le cours. (They spoke after class.)
• Elle s’est lavé les cheveux. (She washed her hair.)

A note on on

With on, spoken French often refers to “we.” Agreement in writing depends on meaning and register.

• On est allés au cinéma. (We went to the cinema.) — common when on means a plural group
• On est allé au cinéma. (Someone/we went to the cinema.) — also found depending on context, register, and whether agreement is marked

For learners, the safest approach is to notice how your target context writes it. If you use on a lot, our article on how to use “on” instead of “nous” is worth reading.

If you want these patterns to become automatic, memorise them as ready-made outputs and review them over time. That’s where VerbPal helps most: we track what you’ve seen, bring it back with spaced repetition, and keep the focus on producing the exact form yourself rather than recognising it in a list.

Pro Tip: Memorise paired forms: je me suis levé / levée, elle est née, ils se sont parlé, elle s’est lavé les mains. These cover the biggest agreement patterns in real conversation.

Common mistakes English speakers make

Here are the errors we see most often.

Mistake 1: forgetting agreement entirely

• Incorrect: Elle est allé à Paris.
• Correct: Elle est allée à Paris. (She went to Paris.)

Mistake 2: adding agreement where it doesn’t belong

• Incorrect: Elles se sont téléphonées.
• Correct: Elles se sont téléphoné. (They called each other.)

Mistake 3: agreeing with the wrong noun

• Incorrect: Elle s’est lavée les mains.
• Correct: Elle s’est lavé les mains. (She washed her hands.)

The subject is feminine, yes, but the reflexive pronoun is indirect here and the direct object comes after the verb.

Mistake 4: choosing the wrong auxiliary, then applying the wrong rule

• Incorrect: Elle est sorti son portable.
• Correct: Elle a sorti son portable. (She took out her phone.)

Mistake 5: knowing the rule passively but freezing in production

This is the most important one. You may score well on multiple-choice exercises and still hesitate when texting a French friend. Active recall is the missing step. Our posts on active recall for the passé composé and moving French verbs from passive study to active speaking go deeper on that training method.

In VerbPal, we designed the review flow around this exact problem. Our spaced repetition engine brings back forms right before you’re likely to lose them, and because the drills require production, you build retrieval strength instead of familiarity. That’s a much better fit for self-directed adult learners than apps built around light recognition and streak-chasing. We cover the full French verb system too, so the same practice method scales from basic être agreement to irregulars, reflexives, and the subjunctive.

Pro Tip: If you keep making the same agreement error, turn that exact sentence into a drill item. One corrected sentence repeated over time beats ten vague reminders.

FAQ

Do French past participles always agree with être?

Usually yes: with être, the participle agrees with the subject. But reflexive verbs can complicate that pattern because agreement depends on whether the reflexive pronoun is direct or indirect and whether a direct object appears before the participle.

Why is it elle est allée but elle s’est lavé les mains?

In elle est allée, the verb uses être and the participle agrees directly with the subject. In elle s’est lavé les mains, the direct object is les mains, which comes after the verb, so the participle does not agree.

Do I pronounce the extra -e and -s endings?

Often no. In many common forms, the extra written endings are silent. That’s why written agreement can be hard even when spoken French sounds clear enough. See also our article on common French spelling mistakes in the present tense for another place where silent endings cause trouble.

Are all reflexive verbs agreement traps?

No. Many common reflexive verbs are straightforward:

• elle s’est levée (she got up)
• ils se sont couchés (they went to bed)
• nous nous sommes rencontrés (we met)

The hardest cases are verbs with indirect objects or body-part constructions.

What’s the best way to practise French past participle agreement with être?

Practise whole sentence patterns with active recall, especially high-frequency verbs and reflexive constructions. If you want a structured way to do that, start with VerbPal: you can train French verbs across major tenses, irregulars, reflexives, and subjunctive forms with a 7-day free trial on iOS and Android.