frenchwithash.ca French with Ash Book 1 · Chapter 6

Book 1 · Chapter 6

Chapitre 6 — Le passé (1)

The past, part 1

What you’ll be able to do

By the end of this chapter, you can:

Four new tools, and one real milestone. You step out of the present for the first time. We drill it until it sticks.

Start talking now

Read this out loud. Tap to hear it.

— Tu as passé un bon weekend?

— Oui, très bon! J’ai vu un film avec des amis, puis on a mangé au restaurant.

— Quel film?

— Un film québécois. Et toi, tu as fait quoi?

— Pas grand-chose. J’ai travaillé samedi, et dimanche j’ai dormi!

English translation

— Did you have a good weekend?

— Yes, very good! I saw a movie with friends, then we ate at a restaurant.

— Which movie?

— A Québécois film. And you, what did you do?

— Not much. I worked Saturday, and Sunday I slept!

Now make it yours. Tell someone two things you did last weekend. Out loud. Use j’ai and a past form of the verb. It’ll feel new in your mouth. Say it anyway.

Words you need

When it happened 0/10 known
  1. hier tap to flip
    yesterday English hidden
1 / 10
0 known
FrançaisEnglish
hier yesterday
hier soir last night
ce matin this morning
ce weekend this weekend
le weekend dernier last weekend
la semaine dernière last week
lundi dernier last Monday
récemment recently
déjà already
il y a deux jours two days ago
Out and about 0/8 known
  1. un film tap to flip
    a movie English hidden
1 / 8
0 known
FrançaisEnglish
un film a movie
un concert a concert
un match a game, a match
une fête a party
un spectacle a show
un verre a drink
un livre a book
la télé TV
New verbs 0/5 known
  1. jouer tap to flip
    to play English hidden
1 / 5
0 known
FrançaisEnglish
jouer to play
finir to finish
dormir to sleep
voir to see
attendre to wait (for)

How French works here

The passé composé: how French talks about the past

Until now, everything’s been in the present. To say what already happened, French reaches for the passé composé, built from two pieces:

[present of avoir] + [past participle]

You already know avoir cold from Chapter 1. The new piece is the past participle, a special past form of the verb. Put them side by side:

J’ai mangé. (I ate / I have eaten.)

Tu as travaillé. (You worked.)

Elle a fini. (She finished.)

One French form covers both English pasts. J’ai mangé is “I ate” and “I have eaten.” French doesn’t split them.

Here’s a full verb in the passé composé, manger (to eat):

j' ai mangé
nous avons mangé
tu as mangé
vous avez mangé
il / elle / on a mangé
ils / elles ont mangé

The participle (mangé) stays exactly the same all the way down. Only avoir moves. Learn the shape once, and it runs almost every verb in the language.

Making the past participle

For most verbs, the participle follows the verb’s ending. Three patterns:

J’ai parlé avec Marie. (I spoke with Marie.)

Tu as fini? (Did you finish?)

On a attendu le bus. (We waited for the bus.)

The -er pattern is the workhorse. Most French verbs are -er verbs, and every one of them makes its participle the same way, with -é. Get that, and you’ve got hundreds of past tenses for free.

The irregular participles

Some of the most common verbs ignore the pattern. You can’t predict these. You memorize them. The good news: there aren’t many, and you’ll lean on the same handful every day.

VerbeParticipeExemple
avoireuJ’ai eu un problème.
êtreétéJ’ai été malade.
fairefaitJ’ai fait du sport.
prendreprisJ’ai pris le métro.
voirvuJ’ai vu un film.

A few more you’ll meet soon, worth knowing now: vouloir → voulu, pouvoir → pu, boire → bu, dire → dit, lire → lu. Add them to your cards as they come up.

Saying no in the past

To make a passé composé negative, ne… pas wraps around avoir, the first piece. The participle sits outside the wrap.

J’ai mangé. → Je n’ai pas mangé. (I didn’t eat.)

Tu as travaillé. → Tu n’as pas travaillé.

Elle a vu le film. → Elle n’a pas vu le film.

Say it a few times. The pas lands before the participle, not after. That’s the part people get wrong at first.

While we’re here: short adverbs like beaucoup, bien, and déjà slip in between avoir and the participle. J’ai beaucoup mangé. J’ai déjà vu ce film.

Pinning it to the past: time markers

The passé composé usually travels with a word that says when. It also tells your listener, right away, that you’ve moved into the past.

hier (yesterday), hier soir (last night), ce matin (this morning)

la semaine dernière (last week), le weekend dernier (last weekend)

il y a deux jours (two days ago)

Hier, j’ai travaillé.

J’ai vu un film le weekend dernier.

Il y a deux jours, on a mangé au restaurant.

One thing to catch. Il y a did one job in Chapter 5: “there is.” Put a stretch of time after it, and it does another: “ago.” Il y a deux jours is “two days ago.” Same two words, told apart by what comes next.

How it sounds

We keep going, building on the R, u, nasals, é/è, liaison, oi, and the letter combos from earlier chapters. Two points this week, both straight out of the past tense.

1. -er and -é: same sound, different job.

Say these out loud: parler and parlé. Hear the difference? There isn’t one. manger / mangé, travailler / travaillé, jouer / joué. Your ear gets nothing to go on. Only the spelling separates them, and the rule is clean: right after a form of avoir, it’s the participle, spelled -é. Anywhere else, it’s the infinitive, -er.

j’ai mangé (the participle, after avoir) · manger (the infinitive)

Both land as “manjé.” This is a classic writing slip. Your ear can’t catch it, so your hand has to.

2. Liaison comes back in the past.

Building the passé composé drops avoir in front of the participle, and avoir is full of liaison. Listen for the link:

on a mangé → “on-na manjé”
nous avons vu → “nou-zavon vu”
ils ont fait → “il-zon fé”
vous avez fini → “vou-zavé fini”

The auxiliary glues onto what sits around it. That’s why spoken past tense flows instead of clicking word by word.

One small oddity while you’re here: eu, the participle of avoir, is pronounced like a bare “u” sound, with the e gone silent. J’ai eu sounds like “zhé ü.”

Understand · don't produce

What you’ll hear in Montréal

For your ears, not your mouth. Recognize these. You don’t need to produce them.

Practice

Exercise 1 — Make the past participle.

Write the participle of each verb.

  1. travailler →
  2. finir →
  3. attendre →
  4. faire →
  5. voir →
  6. prendre →
  7. jouer →
  8. avoir →

Exercise 2 — Put it in the past.

Rewrite each in the passé composé.

  1. Je mange au restaurant. →
  2. Tu travailles beaucoup. →
  3. Elle voit un film. →
  4. Nous prenons le métro. →
  5. Ils font du sport. →

Exercise 3 — Say no.

Rewrite each in the negative.

  1. J’ai mangé. →
  2. Tu as vu le film. →
  3. Elle a fait du sport. →
  4. On a pris le bus. →

Exercise 4 — Irregular participles.

Complete with the passé composé.

  1. Hier, j’ai (faire) du sport.
  2. On a (prendre) le métro.
  3. Elle a (voir) un concert.
  4. J’ai (avoir) un problème ce matin.
  5. Tu as (être) malade?

Exercise 5 — Your weekend.

Write five to seven sentences about what you did last weekend: what you did Saturday and Sunday, where you went or ate, one thing you didn’t do. Use the passé composé with avoir, at least two different participles, one irregular participle, and one past time marker.

le weekend dernier · samedi · dimanche · j’ai vu / j’ai fait / j’ai mangé · je n’ai pas…
Show a model answer

Le weekend dernier, j’ai passé un bon weekend. Samedi, j’ai fait du sport et j’ai vu des amis. Le soir, on a mangé au restaurant. Dimanche, j’ai dormi et j’ai regardé la télé. Je n’ai pas travaillé.

Answers

Show answers

Exercise 1: 1. travaillé · 2. fini · 3. attendu · 4. fait · 5. vu · 6. pris · 7. joué · 8. eu

Exercise 2: 1. J’ai mangé au restaurant. · 2. Tu as beaucoup travaillé. · 3. Elle a vu un film. · 4. Nous avons pris le métro. · 5. Ils ont fait du sport. (In 2, the adverb beaucoup slides between avoir and the participle.)

Exercise 3: 1. Je n’ai pas mangé. · 2. Tu n’as pas vu le film. · 3. Elle n’a pas fait de sport. · 4. On n’a pas pris le bus. (In 3, du sport becomes de sport after the negative, the same rule as last chapter.)

Exercise 4: 1. fait · 2. pris · 3. vu · 4. eu · 5. été

Exercise 5 (one good version):

Le weekend dernier, j’ai passé un bon weekend. Samedi, j’ai fait du sport et j’ai vu des amis. Le soir, on a mangé au restaurant. Dimanche, j’ai dormi et j’ai regardé la télé. Je n’ai pas travaillé.

Your turn

Pick one. Both is better.

This week’s work

Flashcards. Add the three decks: when it happened, out and about, new verbs. Then the part that matters most this chapter: card the irregular participles as pairs you memorize (avoir → eu, être → été, faire → fait, prendre → pris, voir → vu), and make one card for each participle pattern (-er → -é, -ir → -i, -re → -u). Review ten minutes a day, both directions.

Listening. Find someone telling a short story about their weekend or their day. Listen twice before the transcript. Catch the avoir plus participle pairs going by.

Pronunciation. -er and -é (the same sound), and liaison in the past. Keep last weeks’ sounds warm too. A couple of minutes a day.

Production. The weekend story above.

Check yourself

Tick these off honestly.

If a box is empty, go back to that section before Chapter 7. You just crossed into the past tense, the thing most learners dread, and it came down to two pieces and a short list. That’s a big step. Keep going.

Clears this chapter’s checklist, flashcards, and exercise answers on this device.

Next chapter

Next chapter Chapitre 7 — Le passé (2). You’ve got the past with avoir. Now meet the other half. A specific set of verbs, mostly about coming and going, builds the passé composé with être instead, and the participle agrees with who’s speaking. You’ll learn which verbs take être, and how to put your routine verbs into the past. Then you can tell the whole story of a trip, start to finish, in order.

À la semaine prochaine.