1.Paul________(choisir) un sandwich
2.David est Pierre ________(visiter) la France
3.Marie et moi________ (finir) les devoirs
4.Je ________ (vouloir) un stylo.
5.Manuel et toi ________ (aller) au cinéma
Answers
Answer:
Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without traveling.” “Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia.” “Distance sometimes lets you know who is worth keeping, and who is worth letting go.”
Answer:
Lesson 6
THE PAST TENSE – LE PASSÉ COMPOSÉ
Now that we have solid footing in both the present and the future tenses, it is time to learn how to talk about the past. French has several past tenses, but there are two that are the most frequently used in regular conversation:
1. Le Passé Composé
2. L’Imparfait
For now, we will start with learning the Passé Composé, but it is important to know how both tenses are used and how they differ from each other.
In the sentence, “Marie was cooking dinner when Sophie walked in,” there are two actions: cooking and walking. The ‘cooking’ is something that was taking place over a longer period of time and that Marie was still in the process of doing. This continuous action in the past is often expressed in English with “was/were _____-ing” and French uses the imparfait, which we will learn later on. Right now, we are going to focus on completed actions in the past, in this case when Sophie ‘walked in.’ Her action was swift and not ongoing, and French uses the passé composé for such actions.
Let’s look at one more example just for good measure. If you were to say, “When I was a kid, I was afraid of spiders,” both “was a kid” and “was afraid” are actions that are hard to put a start and end-point to. You could have been afraid for months or years, so French uses the imparfait. But in the sentence, “When I saw the spider, I shrieked!” both of the actions, seeing and shrieking, are succinct and we can clearly define their start and end. Therefore, we use the passé composé. If you are still feeling unsure, don’t worry. We will point out all the nuances to keep an eye out for as they come along. Now let’s learn how to form the passé composé.
The passé composé has a very straightforward recipe:
Subject + auxiliary verb (avoir/être) + past participle
There are two auxiliary verbs in French: avoir and être. The most commonly used is avoir, but être is also used in special circumstances. We will explain when to use être as an auxiliary shortly. In the meantime, brush up on your conjugation of avoir and être… you’ll need to have these down pat to form the passé composé with ease.
Avoir
PERSON SINGULAR PLURAL
1 j’ai nous avons
2 tu as vous avez
3 il/elle/on a ils/elles ont
Être
PERSON SINGULAR PLURAL
1 je suis nous sommes
2 tu es vous êtes
3 il/elle/on est ils/elles sont
PAST PARTICIPLE
The past participle is the “studied” in the example sentence, “I have studied.” Participles are formed by changing the endings of the verb, and, depending on the verb group, this change will vary. Let’s look at each verb group separately: -ER, -IR, and -RE.
-ER Verbs
For all -ER verbs, all we have to do is take off the -ER and replace it with an -É
*Don’t forget the accent aigu on the é, it’s a crucial component of the participle!
marcher (to walk)→ marché (walked)
je marche (I walk) → j’ai marché (I walked)
Now try to translate the following examples in English following the pattern of the example above.
chanter (to sing) → chanté
je chante → j’ai chanté
manger → mangé
je mange → j’ai mangé
-IR Verbs
For regular -IR verbs, take off the -IR and replace it with an -I. That simple.
réagir (to react) → réagi
je réagis → j’ai réagi
finir (to finish) → fini
je finis → j’ai fini
-RE Verbs
For regular -RE verbs, replace the -RE ending with a -U.
perdre (to lose) → perdu
je perds → j’ai perdu
vendre (to sell) → vendu
je vends → j’ai vendu
Let’s practice turning some present tense sentences into the past tense with the passé composé:
Je mange mon déjeuner à midi. → J’ai mangé mon déjeuner à midi.
Nous cuisinons le dîner après le match de basket. → Nous avons cuisiné le dîner après le match de basket.
Ils finissent leurs devoirs à l’heure. → Ils ont fini leurs devoirs à l’heure.