Le participe (the participle) and legérondif (the gerund) are both impersonal verb forms. Like the infinitive, they do not have conjugated forms.
There are three types of participles in French: le participe présent (the present participle), le participe passé (the past participle) and le participe composé (the perfect participle). While the perfect participle only really appears in literary contexts, the present and past participles as well as the gerund are used frequently in French, so it’s worth getting to grips with these impersonal verb forms.
Check out the sections below to learn when to use the participle and when to use the gerund in French grammar. Click on the individual topics for an in-depth overview, then test yourself in the online exercises.
Example
Le temps n’étant pas trop mauvais, Max a pu jouer au foot samedi dernier. Le match fut passionnant et l’équipe adverse était surprenante.
En jouant, Max a marqué un but et son équipe a gagné. En s’entraînant bien, son équipe gagnera aussi le prochain match.
Après le match, Max était de très bonne humeur. Il est rentré chez lui en chantant.
Le participe présent (the present participle) always ends in -ant. It can be used as a verb or an adjective (adjectif verbal) and is comparable to the English -ing form. As a verb, the present participle stays the same, however when we use it as an adjective, it agrees in number and gender with the noun it describes.
Examples:
Le temps n’étant pas trop mauvais, Max a pu jouer au foot.Since the weather wasn’t too bad, Max was able to play football.(participe présent)
Max a utilisé une techniqueintéressante.Max used an interesting technique. (adjectif verbal)
Le gérondif (the gerund) allows us to express simultaneous actions, describe how an action is performed and introduce conditions or contrasts. The gerund ends in -ant and is introduced by the preposition en.
Example:
Il est rentré à la maison en chantant.He went home singing.
Le participe passé (the past participle) is used to form compound tenses like the passé composé. We also use certain past participles as adjectives. The past participles of regular verbs are formed by adding a suffix to the stem of the verb according to the infinitive ending. There are, however, many verbs that have irregular past participles.
Le participe composé (the perfect participle) is the compound form of the past participle and is rarely used. The perfect participle is formed using the present participle form of avoir or être followed by the past participle of the main verb.
Example:
Son équipe ayant joué le samedi, Max se reposa le dimanche.Since his team played on Saturday, Max chilled out on Sunday.
