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The passé composé is the most important past tense in French. It corresponds to the English simple past. The passé composé talks about actions that were completed in the past and emphasises their results or consequences in the present. Learn about the passé composé with Lingolia’s examples, then check your knowledge in the free exercises.
- Free Exercise
Complete the sentences with the correct form of the passé...
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- Present Perfect
The present perfect connects the past with the present. Use...
- Questions
Interrogative clauses (une phrase interrogative) are...
- Overview of French Tenses
Overview of French Tenses. The table below presents an...
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The following is the passé composé of the verb parler (to speak). The past participle parlé is the same for every person and the auxiliary verb avoir (to have) changes in accordance with each subject. In French, every verb has one single past particle. This makes learning the passé composé much easier than the present tense.
Let's see when and how to use each tense, with examples and practice exercises. Love French & France. 1. Le Passé Composé. The passé composé is used for actions that are completed in the recent past. It's similar to the English simple past or present perfect. It's formed with Avoir or être at the present tense + past participle of the main ...
Irregular past tense models: cost invar. feed vowel: ... past participle: (to) astonish ... in Spanish in French in Italian: Open All Desktop View. Indicative ...
- Incomplete vs Complete
- Habitual vs Occasional
- Ongoing vs New
- Background + Interruption
- Examples
- Indicators
- Notes
The imperfect describes an ongoing action with no specified completion: 1. J'allais en France. - I was going to France. 2. Je visitais des monuments et prenais des photos.- I was visiting monuments and taking pictures The passé composé expresses one or more events or actions that began and ended in the past: 1. Je suis allé en France.- I went to Fr...
The imperfect is used for habitual or repeated actions, something that happened an uncounted number of times: 1. Je voyageais en France tous les ans.- I traveled (used to travel) to France every year. 2. Je visitais souvent le Louvre.- I often visited the Louvre. The passé composé talks about a single event, or an event that happened a specific num...
The imperfect describes a general physical or mental state of being: 1. J'avais peur des chiens.- I was afraid of dogs. 2. J'aimais les épinards.- I used to like spinach. The passé composé indicates a change in physical or mental state at a precise moment or for an isolated cause: 1. J'ai eu peur quand le chien a aboyé.- I was scared when the dog b...
The imperfect and passé composé sometimes work together - the imperfect provides a description/background info, to set the scene of how things were or what was happening (past tense of "be" + verb with -ing usually indicates this) when something (expressed with the passé composé) interrupted. 1. J'étais à la banque quand Chirac est arrivé.- I was a...
Imperfect 1. Quand j'avais 15 ans, je voulais être psychiatre. Je m'intéressais à la psychologie parce que je connaissais beaucoup de gens très bizarres. Le week-end, j'allais à la bibliothèque et j'étudiais pendant toute la journée. 2. When I was 15, I wanted to be a psychiatrist. I was interested in psychology because I knew a lot of really weird...
The following key words and phrases tend to be used with either the imperfect or the passé composé, so when you see any of them, you know which tense you need:
Some French verbs are used primarily in the imperfect, while others have different meanings depending on which tense they are used in. Learn more about advanced past tenses. There is a third tense, the passé simple, which technically translates to the English simple past tense, but is now used primarily in writing, as the literary equivalentof the ...
The imperfect past tense. The compound past tense. The past simple. The pluperfect past tense. The anterior past tense. Each of these past tenses are used for different reasons. Yes, they’re all past tenses, but there are certain rules that you’ll need to be aware of when forming and using them.
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Aug 30, 2024 · French Verbs. The different past tenses in French are the recent past le passé récent, the present perfect le passé composé, the imperfect l’imparfait, the pluperfect le plus-que-parfait, and the past historic le passé simple. Each tense follows different rules for how to discuss past actions, and each follows a different conjugation ...
