3.15 The passé simple — reading it, not writing it — Epoché
What you will be able to do Recognise the literary past, passé simple , in any text, and translate it with the English simple past. Read its three families of endings, in -a , -i and -u , and the small family in -in . Recognise the irregular forms you will meet on every page: fut , eut , fit , vit , prit , mit , vint , naquit , mourut . Tell the literary past from the present where the forms are identical: il dit , il vit , je finis . See how the literary past and the imperfect share the work of narration, exactly as the perfect and the imperfect do in speech. Sentences from this lesson, before the explanation. Read the French aloud; all of them come back below. French English Aussitôt qu'elle fut seule, elle ouvrit la lettre. [1] The moment she was alone, she opened the letter. Aussitôt qu'il fut au lit il s'endormit rapidement, car il était très fatigué. [2] As soon as he went to bed, he fell fast asleep, for he was very tired. Tout à coup la porte s'ouvrit et un homme entra dans la salle. [3] All of a sudden, the door opened and a man entered the room. Il ferma soudain la porte. [4] He closed the door suddenly. Il fit une promenade avant de petit-déjeuner. [5] He took a walk before breakfast. Elles firent une promenade. [6] They took a walk. Jésus est né à Bethléem. [7] Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Il entra soudain dans la pièce. [8] He suddenly entered the room. Prerequisites : 3.14 — this lesson follows 3.14 Conjugation . You need the opposition between event and background from 4.14 Grammar , because the literary past takes over the event half of it. French has two tenses for a completed event in the past. In speech, and in most everyday writing, it uses the perfect you learned in the first phase: il est sorti . In literature, history books, fairy tales and formal narrative, it uses a one-word tense that has almost disappeared from speech: il sortit . Both mean he went out . You will not need to write this tense. Almost no French speaker uses it in conversation, and an essay or a letter does not call for it. But you cannot read a French novel, a fairy tale or a history book without it, and the readings of this phase bring Perrault's own words, in the literary past, in 7.9 Reading . This lesson is therefore a reading lesson: it teaches you to recognise the forms, mostly in the third person, which is where narrative lives. Table The three families of endings Person -er verbs: parler · -ir and most -re verbs: finir · many -oir verbs: vouloir 1 sg je parlai · je finis · je voulus 2 sg tu parlas · tu finis · tu voulus 3 sg il parla · il finit · il voulut 1 pl nous parlâmes · nous finîmes · nous voulûmes 2 pl vous parlâtes · vous finîtes · vous voulûtes 3 pl ils parlèrent · ils finirent · ils voulurent Every -er verb, without exception, including aller , takes the first set. The -ir verbs of the second group and most -re verbs take the second. Many -oir verbs and a few others take the third. The vowel, a , i or u , runs through the whole tense except the first person singular and third person plural of the first set: -ai , -èrent . The irregular forms you will meet most Infinitive Third person singular · plural être il fut · ils furent avoir il eut · ils eurent faire il fit · ils firent voir il vit · ils virent prendre il prit · ils prirent mettre il mit · ils mirent dire il dit · ils dirent venir , tenir il vint , il tint · ils vinrent pouvoir , savoir , lire il put , il sut , il lut · ils purent , ils surent naître , mourir , vivre il naquit , il mourut , il vécut The pattern behind most of these: the stem is short, often the past participle without its ending. Pris gives prit , mis gives mit , pu gives put , su gives sut , lu gives lut . If you know the participle, you can usually recognise the literary past. How to read the endings Read the third person first. Narrative is told mostly in the third person, so the forms that matter are -a , -it , -ut , -int and their plurals -èrent , -irent , -urent , -inrent . Do not trust the ending alone, though: presents whose stem ends in r look the same, such as ils préfèrent , ils tirent , ils jurent . The tense of the rest of the story decides. Watch the forms that are also presents. For many verbs of the second family, the singular of the literary past is identical to the present: je finis , il finit , il dit , il rit . Il vit is both he lives and he saw . Context decides: in a story told in the past, surrounded by imperfects, il dit is he said . The circumflex marks the nous and vous forms. Nous parlâmes , vous finîtes : these are rare even in literature, because narrators seldom say we and almost never you . When you meet them, the circumflex tells you what they are. The -a of the first family is not the present. Il parla looks like nothing else in the verb, and il alla , from aller , looks like nothing else at all. Once you know that every -er verb has -a in the third person singular of this tense, these forms stop being strange. In real sentences The first family French English Elle parla. [9] She spoke. L'hiver arriva. [10] Winter came. Elle se leva. [11] She stood up. Il ferma la porte. [12] He closed the door. Soudain le téléphone sonna. [13] Just then, the telephone rang. Ils entrèrent tous. [14] They all entered. Après le petit déjeuner nous allâmes faire une promenade. [15] After breakfast, we went for a walk. The third has a reflexive verb, elle se leva ; the literary past takes no auxiliary, so the reflexive pronoun simply stands before it. The sixth is the third person plural in -èrent . The last is the rare first person plural, nous allâmes , with its circumflex. The second family French English Il partit. [16] He walked away. Elle sortit. [17] She went out. Elle ouvrit la porte. [18] She opened the door. Ziri répondit. [19] Ziri answered. Ils partirent tôt. [20] They left early. Ils dirent non. [21] They said no. Tout à coup, j'entendis un cri. [22] All at once, I heard a cry. Partit , sortit , ouvrit , répondit : all -it . Ils