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L’Imparfait
The imperfect tense in French is used to express the distant past, past habits and conditions that no longer exist.
To form the imperfect, conjugate the verb for “vous”, drop the “ez” ending and replace with the following:
| je ”ais” |
nous “ions” |
tu “ais”
|
vous “iez”
|
il/elle/on “ait”
|
ils/elles “aient” |
For example:
| Habiter – to reside, live: Vous habitez |
|
je habitais
|
nous habitions
|
tu habitais
|
vous habitiez
|
il/elle/on habitait
|
ils/elles habitaient |
Exceptions:
Verbs ending in ger retain the “e” in all forms except nous and vous.
| Manger – to eat |
|
je mangeais
|
nous mangions
|
tu mangeais
|
vous mangiez
|
il/elle/on mangeait
|
ils/elles mangeaient |
Verbs ending in “cer” the “c” changes to “ç”.
| Commencer – to begin |
|
je commençais
|
nous commençions
|
tu commençais
|
vous commençiez
|
il/elle/on commençait
|
ils/elles commençaient |
More chocolate, this time one that I actually eat. 
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Passé Composé (Part 2)
It is a compound conjugation, meaning it is has two parts, the present tense of the auxilary verb (either avoir or être) plus the past participle of the main verb.
Another way to make the passé composé is with the verb être. When the auxiliary verb is être, the past participle must agree with the subject.
Être - to be
|
|
je suis
|
nous sommes
|
tu es
|
vous êtes
|
il/elle/on est
|
ils/elles sont
|
| . |
Some past participles:
arriver – arrivé
entrer – entré
monter – monté
passer – passé
rester – resté
aller – allé
So the Passè Composè:
Je suis arrivé.
Tu es entré.
Il est monté. Elle est montée.
Nous sommes passés.
Vous êtes resté.
Ils sont allés. Elles sont allées.
They are only better with friends.
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Passé Composé (Part 1)
Passé Composé in French has three English language equivalents.
For example, the following sentence ”J’ai mangè.” in English could mean:
1. I ate. (simple past)
2. I have eaten. (present perfect)
3. I did eat. (past emphatic)
It is a compound conjugation, meaning it is has two parts, the present tense of the auxilary verb (either avoir or être) plus the past participle of the main verb.
Let’s begin with the present tense of AVOIR and the past participle of the main verb.
Avoir – to have
|
|
j’ai
|
nous avons
|
tu as
|
vous avez
|
il/elle/on a
|
ils/elles ont
|
| . |
Some past participles:
Acheter (to buy) – acheté
Manger (to eat) – mangé
Boire (to drink) – bu
Dire (to say) – dit
Écrire (to write) – écrit
Voir (to see) – vu
So the Passè Composè:
J’ai achetè.
Tu as mangè.
Il a bu.
Nous avons dit.
Vous avez écrit.
Elles ont vu.
Time to get back to some photography.
One of my goals this year is to master small flash photography, so until it drives me insane, that is the lighting I’ll be using.
This shot is tighter and a fair bit lighter. On my laptop the image above is quite dark, but on my desktop it’s lovely.
Time for a monitor calibration!
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I am going to focus on verbs for awhile – cringe. At least they are present tense. For now.
Here are two common “re” verbs.
| Écrire – to write |
|
je écris
|
nous écrivons
|
tu écris
|
vous écrivez
|
il/elle/on écrit
|
ils/elles écrivent
|
| . |
| Lire – to read |
|
je lis
|
nous lisons
|
tu lis
|
vous lisez
|
il/elle/on lit
|
ils/elles lisent
|
| . |
We got up on time yesterday, even dug out the car and drove to school. But not many others did and given the option I chose to bring the kids home to help with the shoveling. I mean have a nice snow day and hot chocolates with me. :)
The kids got back well from Ski Camp. They were 12 lessons ahead, confident, a bit tired and happy to be home. But when we asked them Saturday afternoon what they would like to do on Sunday, they chimed, “ski!”. So we packed up the car before sunrise and headed over to the French Alps Sunday morning.
My main objective is really to ski, so I only brought our little Olympus U-Tough camera. I took a few shots from the moving car and then pretty much forgot I had the camera with me until we were through skiing. Opps.
We were surprised to see that the roads through the center of Geneva were not cleared.
The roads were much better once over in France. And the sunrise was beautiful.
Mike took some video of the skiing, but I have not connected that camera yet. I was busy skiing, but did remember to step out as we were repacking the car to get this quick snap of the cable cars coming up from the village.
And a couple Nathan took in the car on the way home. :)
The boys are still away at ski camp, but one of the teachers sent a great little update and this photo as a sneak peek. They will be giving us a disk of photos on their return. I can’t wait to hear all the stories and to see how well the boys will be skiing next time we go out!
photo by Kevin O’Byrne
