Passé simple
French Simple Past
The passé simple (simple past or preterite) is the literary equivalent of the passé composé, which means that it is used only in formal writing (e.g., historical and literary writing) and very formal speech. In such writing and speech, the passé simple is used alongside l'imparfait, just as in everyday speech/writing, the passé composé and imparfait are used together.
You will probably never need to actually use the passé simple, but it is important and easy to recognize it. (My high school French teacher told me that if a verb looked weird, it was probably in the passé simple. :-)
The passé simple of -ER verbs is formed by dropping the -er and adding the passé simple endings:
| Singular | Plural | ||||
| 1st person | je | -ai | nous | -âmes | |
| 2nd person | tu | -as | vous | -âtes | |
| 3rd person | il | -a | ils | -èrent | |
Thus to conjugate parler, you would remove the -er to find the radical parl- and then add the appropriate endings:
| PARLER | Singular | Plural | |||
| 1st person | je | parlai | nous | parlâmes | |
| 2nd person | tu | parlas | vous | parlâtes | |
| 3rd person | il | parla | ils | parlèrent | |
All -er verbs (including aller) are conjugated according to this pattern, except for irregularities in verbs that end in -ger and -cer:
| MANGER | LANCER | |||||||
| je | mangeai | nous | mangeâmes | je | lançai | nous | lançâmes | |
| tu | mangeas | vous | mangeâtes | tu | lanças | vous | lançâtes | |
| il | mangea | ils | mangèrent | il | lança | ils | lancèrent | |
Because a g or a c followed by an a would make a hard g or c sound (like in gave or cave), an e has to be added after the g and the c has to change to a ç in the imparfait du subjonctif to keep the g soft (like in gel) and the c soft (as in cell). These are known as spelling-change verbs.
Regular -IR and -RE verbs have the following endings:
| Singular | Plural | ||||
| 1st person | je | -is | nous | -îmes | |
| 2nd person | tu | -is | vous | -îtes | |
| 3rd person | il | -it | ils | -irent | |
Remove the -ir or -re and add the passé simple endings to get:
| FINIR | RENDRE | |||||||
| je | finis | nous | finîmes | je | rendis | nous | rendîmes | |
| tu | finis | vous | finîtes | tu | rendis | vous | rendîtes | |
| il | finit | ils | finirent | il | rendit | ils | rendirent | |
| Passé simple of irregular verbs Literary Tenses |
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