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Prendre (to take) - Passé Composé

LESSON OBJECTIVES

• To learn how to conjugate prendre (to take) in the past tense or passé composé.

INTRODUCTION

• Prendre (to take) is a 3rd group verb.
• Its past participle is pris.
• It is conjugated with the auxiliary avoir in the passé composé.

PRENDRE

PASSÉ COMPOSÉ

• j'ai pris (I took/I have taken)
• tu as pris (you took/you have taken) - informal
• il a pris (he took/he has taken)
• elle a pris (he took/he has taken)
• on a pris (we took/we have taken) - informal
• nous avons pris (we took/we have taken)
• vous avez pris (you took/you have taken) - formal or plural
• ils ont pris (they took/they have taken) - masculine or mixed masculine/feminine
• elles ont pris (they took/they have taken) - feminine plural

EXAMPLES

• J'ai pris le train.
  I took the train.
• Tom a pris le train de neuf heures vingt à la gare de Dijon pour aller à Paris.
  Tom took the nine twenty train from Dijon in order to go to Paris.
• J'ai pris des médicaments pendant une semaine.
  I took some medicine for one week.
• Je n'ai pas pris de médicaments pendant une semaine.
  I did not take any medicine for one week.
• George et Martin n'ont pas pris de café pour le déjeuner.
  George and Martin didn't take a coffee for lunch.

NOTES

• In the last example, notice how the negation wraps around the auxiliary avoir.
• Remember that after ne...pas, the indefinite articles un, une, des and the partitive articles du, de la, de l', des become de.