- As you know, I am an advocate of simplification. (LINK French conjugation made simple).
The way I see the French past tense is:
– perfect tense (passé composé) – j’ai mangé
– imperfect tense (imparfait) – j’avais
Dealing with the perfect tense is a source of frustration for many, and that may well include you – you might just not be aware of it.
The best way to get started and get speaking asap is to:
- Use only regular verbs first.
They never tell you this but the perfect tense is used in common spoken French to tell someone what you’ve been up to – usually in a sequence of events.
Compare:
A. Yesterday we decided to go to the zoo, and my daughter watched the monkeys. Then she asked for an ice cream. She ate the ice cream right away. She tried to have another one but we refused.
B. Yesterday we went to the zoo, and my daughter saw the monkeys. Then we gave her an ice cream. She said she wanted another one but we said no.
It’s the same story, but told in different ways.
Now compare the stories in French.
A. Hier on a décidé d’aller au zoo, et ma fille a regardé les singes. Après, elle a demandé une glace.
Elle a mangé la glace tout de suite. Elle a essayé d’en avoir une autre mais on a refusé.
B. Hier on est allé au zoo, et ma fille a vu les singes. Après, on lui a offert une glace. Elle a dit qu’elle en voulait une autre, mais on lui a dit non.
Which one do you think is simpler?
A. of course!
The reason is simple: I am only using regular verbs.
This simple trick will make your life so much easier.
There is a drawback though: you can feel the sentence is a bit less natural. But not to worry.
You’ll learn the verbs in the B. sentence in no time with my IRREGULAR FRENCH VERBS MADE SIMPLE.
Because your goal is to get speaking asap, go for the A. Method.
Using useful regular verbs is crucial to building your confidence.
Otherwise, like many other students of French, you’ll find yourself stuck when trying to say « We went to »…
2. J’ai ………………é
Learning to use French past tense implies mastering its pronunciation at the same time.
A mistake I’ve seen too often is to:
– learn the rules and ignore pronunciation or just leave it aside a ‘not as important’
– leading to great difficulties in the future because it clashes with other similar sounds from other tenses (especially conditional, near future and simple future)
– leading to you having to hire a French tutor to make up for the shaky foundations – that’s where I usually come in! 🙂
What if there was a shortcut to the process?
One is to work on the pronunciation of:
J’ai + ………….é
See:
– j’ai mangé = I ate
– j’ai regardé = I watched
– j’ai demandé = I asked
– j’ai décidé = I decided
– j’ai voyagé = I travelled
This means the first sound you will hear is: /zhay/
Now this is a very powerful tool for your listening.
That means whenever you hear a sentence starting /zhay…/ and ending -é, the person is saying: I ….. (something in the past).
That also means you can use it for yourself, and think (for the verbs mentioned above):
« If I want to use French past, all I need to do is to start saying the /zhay/ sound, and make sure the verb will end with an /é/ sound. »
Examples include:
– If I want to say, ‘I cleaned’, and I’m not sure how to use it, I’ll bear in mind the sound goes:
/zhay/………./é/.
– The word is ‘nettoi’ something.
– Now I just know this will go: « /zhay/nettoy/é/ ».
As you practice this, you become more and more confident in a minimal time.
I prepared a list of the most useful verbs that follow this pattern: /zhay/………../é/.
They are not necessarily the most common, contrary to what you might hear!
Download the free resource here:
Share in the comments below if there’s a verb you’re never quite sure about, and how this article has helped you overcome that struggle of using it in the past tense.
Thanks for reading!