French Grammar: The Passé Simple (Historic Past Tense) – Regular Verbs
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French Grammar: The Passé Simple (Historic Past Tense) – Regular Verbs
la grammaire française : le passé simple – les verbes réguliers
When speaking about the past in English, you choose which past tense to use depending on the context and the meaning you wish to convey. In French sentences, you choose which past tense to use depending on the meaning you wish to convey.
Study:
When speaking about the past in English, you choose which past tense to use depending on the context and the meaning you wish to convey. In French sentences, you choose which past tense to use depending on the meaning you wish to convey.
The Passé Simple (Historic Past Tense) conveys the same sense of past events as the Passé Composé. Like the Passé Composé, it is used to express an action or event (or a series of actions or events) completed in the past. But the Passé Simple is never used in spoken French; it is a literary tense which is only used in formal written French (literature, historical writings and documents, biographies, etc.).
Look at these examples:
Victor Hugo naquit à Besançon en 1802.
Victor Hugo was born in Besançon in 1802.
Christophe Colomb arriva dans le Nouveau Monde en 1492.
Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492.
La Deuxième Guerre mondiale prit fin en 1945.
The Second World War ended in 1945.
The Passé Simple is formed by dropping the infinitive verb’s ending and adding back the appropriate conjugated ending.
For regular -ER verbs, the endings are as follows:
JE : –ai
TU : –as
IL / ELLE / ON : –a
NOUS : –âmes
VOUS : –âtes
ILS / ELLES : –èrent
For regular -IR AND -RE verbs, the endings are as follows:
JE : –is
TU : –is
IL / ELLE / ON : –it
NOUS : –îmes
VOUS : –îtes
ILS / ELLES : –irent
NOTE: Some -ER verbs that have spelling changes in the Present Tense will also have spelling changes in the Passé Simple.
a. Verbs that end in -cer change the c to ç in front of letter a (in order to maintain the soft c sound). For example:
commencer : to begin
JE commençai
TU commenças
IL / ELLE / ON commença
NOUS commençâmes
VOUS commençâtes
ILS / ELLES commencèrent
b. Verbs that end in -ger change the g to ge in front of letter a (in order to maintain the soft g sound). For example:
manger : to eat
JE mangeai
TU mangeas
IL / ELLE / ON mangea
NOUS mangeâmes
VOUS mangeâtes
ILS / ELLES mangèrent
Adapt:
La bataille dura deux jours.
The battle lasted two days.
Le couple partit à cheval vers le coucher du soleil.
The couple rode off on horseback into the sunset.
La neige commença à tomber vers dix heures du matin.
The snow began to fall at ten o’clock in the morning.
Les rebelles lancèrent une attaque.
The rebels launched an attack.
Jeanne d’Arc dirigea les soldats dans le siège d’Orléans.
Joan of Arc led the soldiers in the siege of Orléans.
