Passé Composé

Passé Composé:
The main difficulty with the past tenses in French is that they do not match any specific tense in English.
Here, we will see the “passé compose”, this tense is for an action or a state that started and ended in the past (ex: yesterday, I went...) and you can use the past tense or the preterit to translate it in English.
How to build the “passé compose”

Let’s take an example in English first:
I have danced, “have” is the auxiliary verb and “eaten” the past participle, the same in French, we need an auxiliary verb and a past participle. In English, the past participle can be regular (danced, looked...) or irregular (run, eaten, gone...), in French we have the same problem.
Passé compose with “to have” (avoir) as the auxiliary verb.

In French there are 3 groups of verbs, the first one is for regular verbs ended in “er” like “chanter”, the past participle is also regular in “é”:
Chanter becomes chanté, Danser becomes dansé, so the passé compose is:
J’ai chanté
Tu as chanté
Il a chanté
Nous avons chanté
Vous avez chanté
Ils ont chanté

2nd group of verbs ended in « ir » like « finir » (to finish, to end, the past participle is also regular in “i”; Finir becomes “fini”, so the passé compose:
J’ai fini
Tu as fini
Il a fini
Nous avons fini
Vous avez fini
Ils ont fini

3rd group. Irregular verbs, the past participle is also irregular , you need to learn them :
To run= courir: j’ai couru
To drink= boire: tu as bu
To see= voit: il a vu
To take= prendre: nous avons pris
To be= être: vous avez été
To have= avoir : Ils ont eu

Passé Composé with « to be » (être) as the auxiliary verb:
Some verbs need “to be” instead of “to have”, most of these verbs are related to a move:
To go= aller: je suis allé
To arrive= arriver : tu es arrivé
To come in : entrer : il est entré
To stay= rester : elle est restée
To come= venir : nous sommes venus
To leave= partir : vous êtes partis
To fall= tomber : ils sont tombés
To go upstairs = monter : elles sont montées

As you can see, with the verb « to be », the past participle agrees with the subject :
She stayed: elle est restée, the subject is “elle” feminine so resté needs an additional “e”
They went upstairs: ells sont montées, the subject is “elle” feminine plural, so monté needs “es”.

Passé Composé

Passé Composé:
The main difficulty with the past tenses in French is that they do not match any specific tense in English.
Here, we will see the “passé compose”, this tense is for an action or a state that started and ended in the past (ex: yesterday, I went...) and you can use the past tense or the preterit to translate it in English.
How to build the “passé compose”

Let’s take an example in English first:
I have danced, “have” is the auxiliary verb and “eaten” the past participle, the same in French, we need an auxiliary verb and a past participle. In English, the past participle can be regular (danced, looked...) or irregular (run, eaten, gone...), in French we have the same problem.
Passé compose with “to have” (avoir) as the auxiliary verb.

In French there are 3 groups of verbs, the first one is for regular verbs ended in “er” like “chanter”, the past participle is also regular in “é”:
Chanter becomes chanté, Danser becomes dansé, so the passé compose is:
J’ai chanté
Tu as chanté
Il a chanté
Nous avons chanté
Vous avez chanté
Ils ont chanté

2nd group of verbs ended in « ir » like « finir » (to finish, to end, the past participle is also regular in “i”; Finir becomes “fini”, so the passé compose:
J’ai fini
Tu as fini
Il a fini
Nous avons fini
Vous avez fini
Ils ont fini

3rd group. Irregular verbs, the past participle is also irregular , you need to learn them :
To run= courir: j’ai couru
To drink= boire: tu as bu
To see= voit: il a vu
To take= prendre: nous avons pris
To be= être: vous avez été
To have= avoir : Ils ont eu

Passé Composé with « to be » (être) as the auxiliary verb:
Some verbs need “to be” instead of “to have”, most of these verbs are related to a move:
To go= aller: je suis allé
To arrive= arriver : tu es arrivé
To come in : entrer : il est entré
To stay= rester : elle est restée
To come= venir : nous sommes venus
To leave= partir : vous êtes partis
To fall= tomber : ils sont tombés
To go upstairs = monter : elles sont montées

As you can see, with the verb « to be », the past participle agrees with the subject :
She stayed: elle est restée, the subject is “elle” feminine so resté needs an additional “e”
They went upstairs: ells sont montées, the subject is “elle” feminine plural, so monté needs “es”.

Les îles sous la désillusion.

Depuis plus d’un mois¹, rien ne va plus en Guadeloupe², la vie chère³ et même très chère fait réagir les Guadeloupéens. Un exemple, le kilo de pâtes atteint 2€60 là-bas, alors qu’on le trouve à moins de 1 € en Métropole. Le fait, également, que les médias ont boudé⁵ cette information pendant les premières semaines et que le gouvernement a tardé⁶ à réagir, a fait resurgir⁷ un autre sentiment qui n’a pas de rapport avec le pouvoir d’achat. Les Guadeloupéens ressentent cet abandon comme une nouvelle manifestation⁸ du colonialisme. Depuis⁹, les autres îles françaises ont emboîté¹⁰ le pas.

Go to http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/magazine/ for the mp3 file

1. Depuis plus d’un mois : for more than a month

2. Rien ne va plus: Nothing goes well anymore

3. Cher (m), chère (f): expensive

4. Métropole: metropolitan France, main country

5. Bouder: to be reluctant to give the information, to sulk, to cold-shoulder

6. Tarder: to delay, here to take time before reacting

7. Resurgir: to resurface

8. Manifestation: expression

9. Depuis: from then

10. Emboîter le pas: to follow close behind (emboîter = to fit together)

You can see here something strange with the use of “re”: - Resurgir (re-surgir) and Ressentir (re-sentir), the first verb takes only one “s”. There is a rule, between two vowels the sound “s” becomes “z”, we have an exception with “resurgir”, we pronounce it like ressurgir.

Use of capital letter: un Guadeloupéen is a person, un livre guadeloupéen, here guadeloupéen is an adjective so no capital letter, same thing for Français and français.

Les îles sous la désillusion.

Depuis plus d’un mois¹, rien ne va plus en Guadeloupe², la vie chère³ et même très chère fait réagir les Guadeloupéens. Un exemple, le kilo de pâtes atteint 2€60 là-bas, alors qu’on le trouve à moins de 1 € en Métropole. Le fait, également, que les médias ont boudé⁵ cette information pendant les premières semaines et que le gouvernement a tardé⁶ à réagir, a fait resurgir⁷ un autre sentiment qui n’a pas de rapport avec le pouvoir d’achat. Les Guadeloupéens ressentent cet abandon comme une nouvelle manifestation⁸ du colonialisme. Depuis⁹, les autres îles françaises ont emboîté¹⁰ le pas.

[podcast]http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/magazine/newsletter1/iles.mp3[/podcast]

1. Depuis plus d’un mois : for more than a month

2. Rien ne va plus: Nothing goes well anymore

3. Cher (m), chère (f): expensive

4. Métropole: metropolitan France, main country

5. Bouder: to be reluctant to give the information, to sulk, to cold-shoulder

6. Tarder: to delay, here to take time before reacting

7. Resurgir: to resurface

8. Manifestation: expression

9. Depuis: from then

10. Emboîter le pas: to follow close behind (emboîter = to fit together)

You can see here something strange with the use of “re”: - Resurgir (re-surgir) and Ressentir (re-sentir), the first verb takes only one “s”. There is a rule, between two vowels the sound “s” becomes “z”, we have an exception with “resurgir”, we pronounce it like ressurgir.

Use of capital letter: un Guadeloupéen is a person, un livre guadeloupéen, here guadeloupéen is an adjective so no capital letter, same thing for Français and français.