Today is the Queen’s birthday (l’anniversaire officiel de la reine) in Australia and other Commonwealth nations, which means public servants and some workers get a long weekend. Suppose if tomorrow when work resumes as normal you are telling your co-workers what you did over the weekend. ‘Sur le week-end, je suis allé à Geraldton avec ma famille.’ It’s very common to hear this mistake because of the literal translation of ‘over’ to sur. To avoid embarrassment, say pendant le week-end instead (that is how weekend is written in French): Pendant le week-end, je suis allé à Geraldton avec ma famille.

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If you are in France (or another francophone country) and you want to say something makes you laugh, you would be quite right to use the verb ‘faire’: Ça me fait rire. If on the other hand you want to ascribe a descriptive quality to something using ‘make’, you will need a different verb: rendre. Rendre is used when talking about adjectives instead of verbs: Le film m’a rendu triste – The film made me sad. So, you wouldn’t say Le film m’a fait triste or you may attract a few giggles from your audience. Another use of rendre is to mean ‘return’ in the sense of giving something back to someone or handing in your homework/assignment.

Imparfait

The imperfect is the equivalent of was + -ing form of a verb in English (e.g. ‘I was walking’). It expresses a continuous or ongoing action taking place in the past, or a habitual action in the past. It is often used in conjunction with the passé composé, which can be a source of confusion for many students. As a general rule, the passé compose is used to signal that an action has been completed in the past while the imperfect signals an action that is ongoing in the past. The imperfect is also used to set the scene in descriptions.

Quand j’etais jeune, j’aimais regarder les dessins animés – When I was young, I liked watching cartoons  

Hier matin, il faisait beau. Le soleil brillait et il y avait une brise légère – Yesterday morning, the weather was nice. The sun was shining and there was a slight breeze.

Je me promenais quand j’ai croisé Jeanne – I was taking a walk when I ran into Jeanne (the imperfect is used here to describe what the speaker was in the middle of doing. The passé composé in this case denotes an instantaneous action that was over as soon as it began.)

Passé simple

This tense (literally the simple past) is usually taught for recognition only (this means students don’t need to learn how to use it, they just need to learn to recognise it in texts). It is mostly found in novels but is sometimes used in news articles. For this reason, it is sometimes called the historic past. The passé simple performs the same function as the passé composé, but is not used in speech and is rarely used in everyday writing other than the aforementioned forms (this is something of a pity as you don’t have to deal with the usual complicated agreement rules that come with the passé composé and other compound tenses). The ‘simple’ in the name refers to the fact that it is composed of just one part (unlike the passé composé which has two components).

Elle éteignit la télé, ferma les portes à clé et se rétira – She turned off the TV, locked the doors and withdrew (i.e. went to bed) [infinitive of verbs in order: éteindre, fermer, se rétirer]

Il fut réélu après les élections – He was re-elected after the elections [être]

Plus-que-parfait

Plus-que-parfait (pluperfect in English) literally means ‘more than perfect’ in French. Perfect means in the past. So, the plus-que-parfait denotes actions more than past. In other words, it marks an action that took place in the past before another action. It corresponds to had + past participle (henceforth pp) in English. It is formed by combining the imperfect form of avoir or être and the pp of the main verb (for clarification on verbs using avoir and être, see Après avoir, après être).

Je ne savais pas qu’elle avait déjà payé l’addition – I didn’t know she had already paid the bill (‘avait’ = imperfect of avoir; ‘payé’ = pp of the verb payer)

Futur simple

The futur simple is one of two tenses used to express actions that are yet to take place. It is a simple tense which means you don’t have to worry about any agreements with a participle. The future simple sometimes competes with the futur proche in much the same way as the tension between the imperfect and passé composé. Generally, the futur simple is used to denote actions taking place in the distant future (the equivalent of ‘will + infinitive’ in English).

Je partirai pour Perth dans deux semaines – I will be leaving (or will leave) for Perth in two weeks.

Futur proche

The futur proche (literally ‘near future’) is formed by combining the present of aller with the infinitive of the main verb (note that even though it is made up of two parts, it is not a compound tense as compound tenses need to contain an auxiliary verb, i.e. avoir or être). It translates to ‘going to + infinitive’ in English. As the name suggests, it is used to talk about events that are due to take place somewhere in the near future (as to what constitutes the near or distant future, the distinction is somewhat arbitrary and in actual usage the futur proche and futur simple are often employed interchangeably). E.g. Je vais partir pour Perth dans deux semaines

Other tenses

Passé récent

The passé récent is the equivalent of [have] just + simple past of verb (‘to have just done something’ (square brackets indicate this may or may not be present). It is formed by combining venir with the infinitive of the main verb in the form venir de + infinitive.

Je viens de me rendre compte que j’ai laissé tomber mon portefeuille dans le bus ce matin – I just realised I dropped my wallet in the bus this morning

Venir can also be conjugated in the imperfect to signal that the action took place in the distant past (for instance when telling stories). In this way, it works in a similar fashion to the plus-que-parfait and corresponds instead to ‘had just done something’.

Bienvenue chez les ch’tis venait de sortir quand j’étais né – Bienvenue chez les ch’tis had just come out when I was born

VERB FORMS

In French, the verb is the most important aspect of a sentence. The syntax revolves around it and it comes into play when agreements need to be made with a subject or object. Verbs exist in various forms and these forms (which are strictly speaking not the same as tenses or moods) are employed in various contexts for special purposes. The verb forms we will be looking at are the infinitive, past participle, present participle, gerund and verbal adjective. Please note that these verb forms also exist in English but may have different uses.

Infinitive – L’infinitif

The infinitive is the ‘raw’ or basic form of a verb, without any conjugations linking it to a particular subject. In English, infinitives are preceded by the preposition ‘to’ (e.g. ‘to eat’, ‘to go’, ‘to open’). In French, they appear alone (e.g. manger, aller, ouvrir), though they are paired with prepositions in certain locutions (see below).

The infinitive is used in two contexts in French:

After a conjugated verb:

Je vais faire la vaisselle après une partie d’échecs – I will do the dishes after a game of chess (‘vais’ is a conjugated form of ‘aller’, so ‘faire’ is in the infinitive)

After a preposition, usually à, de or pour:

Il a décidé de prendre sa retraite à l’âge de soixante-dix ans – He decided to go on retirement at the age of 70

Grégoire se met à chanter quand il rentre du travail – Gregory starts singing when he returns home from work (or ‘Gregory starts to sing…’)

Pour avoir de bonnes notes, il faut travailler très dur – To have good grades, you need to work very hard (or ‘…it is necessary to work hard.’)

The infinitive is also used at the beginning of sentences or clauses where the equivalent English translation is the verb form ending in ‘-ing’:

Aller à la plage est une bonne façon de se détendre quand il fait beau dehors – Going to the beach is a good way to relax when it’s nice outside

Past participle – Participe passé

The past participle (pp) is the form of a verb used in forming past (also called perfect) tenses. In French, it forms part of compound tenses while it can stand alone as a tense in English. In English, it refers to both the verb form (e.g. ‘eaten’) and the tense incorporating the present of ‘to have’ (e.g. ‘I have eaten’). In French both the simple past tense (‘I ate’) and the past participle (‘I have eaten’) are represented by the same form (e.g. ‘J’ai mangé’).

The pp can also be used as an adjective to modify a noun (e.g. un chien perdu – a lost dog).

Present participle – Participe présent

The participe présent is the verb form ending in -ant in French (its English equivalent is the verb form ending in -ing). It is employed with the participe passé to mean ‘having + pp’.

E.g. Ayant arrivé tôt, il a dû attendre les autres – Having arrived early, he had to wait for the others.

It is also used to express cause, and in this way acts as a substitute for conjunctions like comme (as) and puisque (since, in the sense ‘because’). E.g. Les gens parlant trop fort, nous avions du mal à nous entendre – As people were speaking too loudly, we had trouble hearing each other (this could have been written using the imperfect instead: Comme les gens parlaient trop fort…)

In English, the present participle is used in the formation of the present continuous (‘He is watching TV’) and the imperfect (‘He was watching TV’).   

Gerund – Le Gérondif

The gerund is the present participle preceded by en. In English, the gerund is the the -ing form of a verb used as a noun (e.g. ‘His telling of the story was full of discrepancies’). The French gerund is used to mark two actions as taking place simultaneously and is roughly equivalent to the English ‘while doing something’. To use the gerund this way, the subjects of both actions must be the same.

Il boit du café en lisant le journal – He drinks coffee while reading the newspaper (notice how the person drinking the coffee and the one reading the paper are the same)

It can also express cause, condition and even opposition: Patricia s’est cassé la jambe en jouant au foot – Patricia broke her leg (while) playing football

Verbal adjective – L’adjectif verbal

The verbal adjective is an adjective formed from a verb. It often shares the same root with the participe présent but differs in its ending. Since it is an adjective, it agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies (the participe présent does not do this). For example, the present participle of the verb faitguer is fatigant, while the verbal adjective is fatiguant:

Son travail est fatiguant – His work is tiring

Son travail le fatigant, il se mettait à en chercher un autre – His work tiring him, he started to look for another

Verbal adjectives are very common in everyday use, and you may have come across them without realising what they were: un roman intéressant (from the verb intéresser), une histoire convaincante (from the verb convaincre), deux enfants différents (from the verb différer).