Dictionary tips

Hey everyone!
Thought I'd do something a bit different today, and take a look at some dictionary use tips that I've come across over the years, and looking at how I use my own these days, now that I'm learning French again.

This is my dictionary stack, something that, weirdly, I find quite exciting! When I started out on this journey, getting a dictionary was pretty much top of the list and, after having a look around, I decided to go for the Collins series of books. Now, it's true, the Collins website does actually do all of this online for free, but I think it's helpful (and, indeed, important) to have a physical book on hand.

My dictionary of choice is the middle one of the pile there, the French Dictionary & Grammar book. As well as providing a wealth of detail within the translations, including several useful idiomatic expressions for many entries, there is a splendid, if concise, grammar section in the back. Covering dozens of verb conjugations across all tenses and moods, as well as going through prepositions, pronouns, and all the other parts of speech, it's a cracking book, and one that I can highly recommend for daily use.

In addition to this, I have the smaller Pocket Dictionary on my desk in work. Whose pockets this book was designed for, I'll never know, but it's a very handy book to have around if I'm looking for a quick translation of something. I'm often thinking about learning French throughout the day, as I try to incorporate the language into my daily life wherever practically possible, and if I'm trying to think of a word or something, it's good to have it on hand here.

The big daddy of the dictionaries, however, has got to be le Robért. "For Advanced Learners and Professionals" - don't let that tag-line put you off, though! This book is certainly for the serious learner, but it's the sort of book that you could almost leaf through like a novel, or something. The quality and depth of the translations, the coverage... it's tremendous, it really is. The "Language in Use" section in the middle is worth the price alone, containing hundreds of situational phrases that will help you improve your French, and aid you to sound like a natural!

I mean, look at the depth they go into with être!

So that's all well and good, but how do we best use these things to our advantage? Here are 5 tips that I've come across over the years, that I want to share with you all now!

1. Always check through the entire entry
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, words can have several meanings, as I'm sure we all know. To put up a shelf does not mean the same thing as to put up with someone snoring. Secondly, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of entries will have an example of how the word is used in a sentence, which can be a great help when you come to then use the word in your own sentence. For instance, staying with our "put up" example, the entry gives us how to say "to put somebody up to doing something", which in the Collins is translated using the verb 'pousser', and not any of the various verbs that it uses to translate "to put up". This brings me on to my second point.

2. In a bilingual dictionary, always double check the translation
Let's stick with our "to put up" example for now. As I said, the Collins dictionary uses 'pousser' to translate the phrase "to put somebody up to doing something". 'Pousser', however, is not one of those verbs that is given as a translation at the start of the entry. So what does 'pousser' mean? Well, we need to look this up in the French part of the dictionary, and see how it is translated back into English. Turns out, it means "to push" or "to drive hard". So we definitely know that we're on the right track.

3. Know your grammar (and grammatical abbreviations!)
After the headword and the pronunciation guide, each word then has an abbreviation such as ADJ or VT. At the front of the dictionary, there will be a list of what these abbreviations mean. Splendid! But how will that help you in deciding which word is right? Good question. Let's look at the word "past", which in English can be a noun (in the past), a preposition (it's gone past midnight), an adverb (to walk past) or an adjective (the past few days). This is where it helps to understand how your native language works, to understand what you're trying to say before translating it.

It also helps to underline points one and two above - where a word has more than one meaning or use, you need to check the whole entry to see whether the word you want is actually mentioned further down (and perhaps given an example of its use), and it can always help to double-check the word you want to use in the French section, too.

4. Understand when you're using an idiom, and don't try to translate it word-for-word!
This one might be another obvious one, but it needs to be mentioned all the same. For instance, you might want to say "it's raining cats and dogs" - il pleut des chats et des chiens". No! That's an English idiom, and it doesn't exist in that form in French - instead, they say 'il pleut des cordes', which means "it's raining ropes". Neither animals nor ropes are falling from the sky, but you have to know when you're trying to translate something literally, and when you need something more figurative. Idioms, on the whole, are best learnt as you go - which can actually be quite fun. There are a lot that involve cats...

5. Know when to not use the dictionary
This one might be a bit strange, but it's also very important as time goes on. Having an awareness of the previous four points, it can then become quite important to know, when you're trying to express yourself, when to use an alternative for a word. There have been times when I've tried to be a bit clever, and express something with a fairly complicated structure when, in actual fact, I could have done the same thing without needing to turn to a dictionary. Going down the route of something fairly complex has then led me to either make mistakes, get confused, or both.

Keep it simple, but keep it to your current level. I'm not trying to say you shouldn't be ambitious, but don't try to go crazy too soon, you know?

Hopefully this has been useful, anyway - let me know in the comments if you have any more tips for making the most out of dictionaries!

Pourquoi est-ce que tu étudies le français?

Hello everybody!

I've been doing some work on adjectives this week, and the correct placement with all of that stuff. Trying to get it straight in my mind has been more difficult than I'd thought it would be! It seems that everything I read up on this topic comes with a different set of exceptions to the rule, although I do believe things are slowly sinking in!

Today, I'm attempting to memorize a list. Ah, learning! 🤓🥴 #learningFrench #adjectives #French 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/RCGZChpeTr

— MarkLearnsFrench (@learns_french) May 18, 2020

I've also been reading a lot around reasons for studying French, as I thought it would be an interesting topic to write about, as well as perhaps providing some useful practice for a number of things. 

Je me souviens avoir appris le français quand j’étais à l’école, et c’était un de mes matières préférées. Elle me stimulait, car c’est très passionnant d’apprendre une langue étrangère. C’était une compétence vrai, par rapport aux autres matières, qui semblaient plus académique, et sans but.

J’étais bon en français. Aujourd’hui, je trouve toujours que c’est vraiment passionnant. J’ai recommencé mes études décembre dernier, car je voulais développer un’habileté – en bref, je voulais être bon en français encore! Je voudrais un nouveau emploi aussi, et j’espère que cela m’aide avec ça!

Je pense que c’est très important de connaître plus d’une seule langue – on ne peut pas exiger des autres à parler l’anglais tout le temps. Au moins, c’est impoli! Je voudrais aller en France, et je voudrais parler aux gens du pays sans demander s’ils parlent ma langue.

J’adore mes études, et il me fait plaisir d’apprendre toutes ces choses – c’est vraiment génial! Je comprends beaucoup plus qu’avait, et ça me fait heureux. Le français est une belle langue musicale, avec beaucoup de l’élégance et du style. Je ne sais pas s’il m’aidera trouver un nouveau emploi, mais je continuera l’apprendre, quand même.

So here we go!

Je me souviens avoir appris le français quand j’étais à l’école

This is an interesting start, I think. "I remember learning French when I was in school" - a fairly innocuous sentence maybe, but that 'avoir appris' is an example of the past infinitive - because we've got two verbs in succession, the second verb used is in its infinitive form, as usual. But because the action of learning here took place before the action of me remembering it, we have the past infinitive. This is basically the infinitive of the auxiliary verb, with the past participle of the main verb, but I thought it was interesting and wanted to point it out!

C’était une compétence vrai, par rapport aux autres matières

I really enjoyed French at school - it felt like something really worthwhile, to me, as opposed to other subjects. I think the only subject I preferred to French was Music, which I was really interested in as a teenager, and will no doubt form the subject of an upcoming blog here! 

J’étais bon en français

Of course, I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet here! A lot of this blog post up to now alternates a lot with the passé composé and the imparfait. I've talked about this before, of course, but it's interesting to see how these tenses usually weave in and out of each other! But it's now time to move on to the present.

Je pense que c’est très important de connaître plus d’une seule langue

I don't know about you, but I feel that it is very important to know more than one language. I find it quite rude when you see people on holiday just expect the natives of that country to understand them, without even trying. I've read many times that it's this exact attitude that is the cause of the French national stereotype - it's not the French who are rude, however, for being affronted by such a lack of effort!

'Seule' is one of those adjectives that can be placed either before or after the noun, and in this position (before 'langue') it means "sole" as opposed to "lonely", which is the meaning when it is placed after the noun. There are so many lists out there of adjectives, and it's another one of these aspects of learning the language where you just have to learn a list...

Je comprends beaucoup plus qu’avait

It's no lie, in the six months since I started to learn French once more, I feel as though I've learnt more grammar than I ever did during the seven years in classrooms! I mean, I have an A level in French and I never once studied even the Conditional mood! Of course, the payoff is that I think I had a much larger vocabulary back then than I do now, and so I need to concentrate on this!

Le français est une belle langue musicale

Here we are with these adjectives again! So 'belle' is one of those that always goes before the noun, while 'musicale' is one that gets placed afterwards. It often results in constructions like this, with nouns surrounded on all sides! I've definitely got to try and sort out a lot of my muddled notes on adjectives, so stay tuned for a blog post on that topic!

Je ne sais pas s’il m’aidera trouver un nouveau emploi

I sort of wrestled with this last sentence, as I'm not sure if it's one that requires the subjunctive. "I don't know if it will help me find a new job" - that's an expression of doubt there, after all. But I'm using 'savoir', so I guess it's the indicative? (Incidentally, I've settled on using the future tense for what I think is the first time in one of these blog posts - again, there's a blog coming on that topic, soon!) 

Anyway, that's my somewhat garbled story for learning French! As always, let me know if I've made any mistakes in the comments - and while you're down there, if you are also learning French, why not share your own reasons for learning this wonderful language!

Les vacances

Hello everybody!
I'm always thinking about what I can do to try and find ways to get me thinking more in French. Earlier this week, I'd started looking at the AQA GCSE French syllabus for something of a more structured plan for me re-learing French - it might seem odd, given that I have a GCSE in French, already, but still! Looking at some of the past papers on the site, I thought I'd give this a go, from the 2018 Writing part of the exam. I've been trying to learn more vocabulary in general, and words and phrases associated with holidays have been my starting point. I mean, it's probably the closest any of us is going to get to an actual holiday this year!

Vous décrivez vos vacances pour votre blog. Décrivez:

- votre destination de vacances préférée

- le voyage pour aller à cette destination

- vos vacances l'année dernière

- votre préférence pour les vacances à l'avenir

J'aime bien voyager en Grande-Bretagne. Quand j'étais jeune, nous voyageons ici souvent, car nous n'avions beaucoup d'argent. Je pense que j'ai visité la plupart du pays! Cependant, j'aime explorer les pays d'outre-mer aujourd'hui, bien que j'aime les petites vacances ici.

Surtout, j'adore l'Italie, et j'y ai visitée trois fois jusqu'à maintenant. Je suis allé à Milan deux fois, et je suis allé à Rome en 2018 avec ma femme pour la lune de miel. Mes vacances à Milan étaient la première fois que j'étais en vacances à l'étranger seul. Le voyage à Rome était très génial, car j'étais avec l'amour de ma vie - c'était merveilleux! Malheureusement, je n'aime pas voyager en avion!

L'année dernière, nous sommes allés dans le Kent, dans le sud de l'Angleterre. Nous étions là en mai, pendant que Jemma était enceinte, et nous ne voudrions pas voyager au lointain. Nous louions une petite maison au bord de la mer pour une semaine - c'était tranquille, et nous l'aimions beaucoup. Nous avons passé un bon séjour!

A l'avenir, j'espère voyager plus en France. Après avoir étudié le français j'aimerais utiliser la language dans la réalité. J'y ai visité il y a vings ans avec ma famille, mais nous ne sommes pas allés loin. Je voudrais visiter Paris, mais surtout je voudrais aller en Avignon car je suis très interessé par le Palais des Papes - j'aime beaucoup l'histoire médiévale. Mes vacances de rêve seraient visiter New England aux États-Unis. J'ai un projet depuis 2014 à visiter Boston, Washington et Philadelphia, mais je n'ai jamais eu d'argent!

Well the question asked for around 90 words, and I've gone on for more than 250! Of course, most of this answer wasn't written under exam conditions, so that certainly helps! But let's take a look through what I've come up with, and see if it's all correct...

J'aime bien voyager en Grande-Bretagne

An answer for this question asks for a whole bunch of tenses, so this opening paragraph is quite exciting in that respect! To start with, I thought I'd reminisce about holidays in Britain when I was young, using the passé composé and imperfect. Most excitingly of all, though, I've got a subjunctive trigger in here! 'Bien que j'aime les petites vacances ici' means "although I like small trips here", which is a fairly innocuous little sentence, I'm sure you'll agree, but 'bien que' is one of these little phrases that requires the subjunctive, which makes using this particularly tricky verb mood a little easier. At some point, I'll get round to writing a blog on the subjunctive, for sure, though I'm currently still getting to grips with it myself! That said, it's not exactly all that exciting, as regular -er verbs like aimer conjugate in the subjunctive very much like they do in the present tense. Anyway!

Surtout, j'adore l'Italie, et j'y ai visitée trois fois jusqu'à maintenant

I love Italy. It's been something of a love affair for me since my teens. Sadly, I've only been there three times before - though the last time was my honeymoon ('lune de miel') so that was really special! Getting back to the grammar here, I do like being able to use y when I can, as I said in my last blog - there's just something about it that feels so very French! Here, though, we've got an example of direct object agreement with a past participle, the only time verbs which take avoir as an auxiliary have to agree. However, I'm not 100% sure that I've got this right - are countries classed as direct objects in French? Don't know - but Italy is feminine in French, and as it comes before the the verb construction, the past participle would therefore need to agree. Right? I think so. 

L'année dernière, nous sommes allés dans le Kent

Last year, we went to Kent - my wife Jemma was pregnant so we didn't want to go far, and so rented a cottage near to the sea. It was lovely, anyway! Bit of a tricky one here, deciding which conjunction to use for "while" - I'd originally hoped to get in 'lorsque', as it's one of these words I'd like to use, but I think the better fit was indeed 'pendant que'. After all, Jemma was pregnant for the entire duration of our stay! I find it very French how the verb 'passer' is used to indicate spending time, so wanted to use that here somewhere.

A l'avenir, j'espère voyager plus en France

This last paragraph has got another mix of tenses, as I throw in the conditional as well! This last paragraph, describing my preference for future holidays, I thought would originally use a lot of the future tense, but I suppose the way the world is right now, that just wasn't going to happen! Of course, I'm sort of dreaming big with some of these ideas - I've had plans to travel to the USA since at least 2014, but never had the money - and you'd perhaps think that the subjunctive would be called upon once again, as the likelihood isn't great... but I'm choosing to be hopeful! 

I'm sure there would have been a much better way of writing this answer - certainly a bit more idiomatic - but I was trying to rely much more on my own knowledge that I've managed to gain up to now, without having my nose in a dictionary for most of it. I'm starting to produce longer written pieces in French now, albeit still very much focused around the DELF A1 level of talking about myself, but it really doesn't matter while I'm at this stage what I'm writing about - the fact that I'm getting to use the language and all the rest of it is really the important thing, I think!

I'd hesitate to say that I'm getting a lot more comfortable with writing in French, but I do think that a lot of things are slotting into place for me, now! And this is half the battle, and really the main reason that I spend a lot of my learning time writing - if I can get more used to writing my thoughts in French, that is a good way to practice the use of the language, so that I can grow in my confidence and speed at producing French. From there, I can then look at speaking more and more. Don't get me wrong, I speak fairly often in French anyway, though while I'm currently learning by myself, there aren't a great deal of opportunities to do so! To my way of thinking, if I can keep going with writing this stuff down, I'll be able to build those reflexes that should (will!) allow me to get more natural at speaking, once I manage to get all of the grammar down. 

That's my plan, anyway! 

The Imperfect Tense

Hello everybody!

I seem to spend a lot of time looking to the past on this blog, so I thought today it might be good to continue the work from my previous grammar blog, and look at the other past tense that sees a lot of use – the Imperfect tense.

I think I mentioned this in the last post: grammatically speaking, “perfect” means a completed action, and “imperfect” is an ongoing or continuous action. Well, that’s pretty much what the imperfect tense is used for: actions that were continuous or habitual in the past (generally, if the period of time covered by the action being described is vague). It is also used to describe a state of being in the past, and to describe an action that gives context to another past action, though this one can be a bit tricky. The most common English equivalent is “was”, or “used to”.  

First of all, let’s take a look at how it’s formed.

I’ve seen some guides talk about taking the “nous” stem for the verb in the present tense, and then adding the endings, which is a very handy way of looking at it! As you can see, the three groups of verbs share the same endings, which is a bit better than the present tense! These endings are also used for the irregular verbs, as you can see below, as well as used in the conditional mood (more on this in a future blog!):

Now that I’ve covered how to form the tense, though, let’s get back to talking about how it is used.

As I said in the preamble up there, the most common translation for the imperfect tense in English is “was” or “used to”. However, it’s important to note that you don’t literally translate an English phrase such as “I was watching the birds” word for word, as this is actually an example of the English past progressive, something that doesn’t exist in French. Instead, you conjugate the verb “to watch” in the imperfect tense, which encompasses both the verb itself and the modal “was”. (Modal verbs are used in English all the time, almost as a way around needing the endless sets of verb conjugations we see in romance languages such as French).

“I was watching the birds” does not translate to ‘J’étais regardant les oiseaux’, nor ‘J’étais regarder les oiseaux’. Rather, it’s simply ‘Je regardais les oiseaux’. It’s fairly straightforward, but I remember from my school days that a lot of people struggle with the fact that the “was” in French is subsumed along with the verb you want. Especially when you think that the perfect tense version of this, “I watched the birds”, would be ‘J’ai regardé les oiseaux’ – the perfect tense needs more words than the imperfect, which is the opposite of their English equivalents.

Sticking with our bird-watching example, this brings me on to the next point. As you can see, “I watched the birds” implies the action was a one-off, that I watched them once and then moved on to something else. “I was watching the birds” opens up a different set of possibilities – either I was watching them for a period of eight years, or I was watching them when a car drove into the tree. This shows how the imperfect tense is used in French – to give context to a past action that is itself expressed through the passé composé, or to describe a continuous or habitual action in the past.

As a point of note, the passé composé is still used if you’re talking about something definite in the past. I saw an example online that talked about eating in a restaurant three times. While you might think that’s a continuous or habitual action, the sentiment is that you ate there three times and never again, so it’s a completed action and so needs the perfect tense. If you were more vague, and “used to eat there”, then it’s the imperfect. This can be a little difficult to get used to at first, because it comes down to the difference between a repeated action (which takes the passé composé) and a continuous or habitual action (which takes the imperfect).

Without wanting to get too off-topic here, there is another past tense that can sometimes muddy the waters here, as I said at the beginning. The Pluperfect tense is used to describe a completed action that took place, but has some reference to, a subsequent completed action. When we’re talking about using the imperfect to give context to an action that uses the passé composé, that action must be one that was occurring, not that had occurred. If the action had occurred, then you need the Pluperfect – which will be a separate blog!

The imperfect tense is also used to describe feelings, such as “I was sad” (J’étais triste), as well as some special uses that involve the conditional mood that I don’t want to get into just yet – mainly because I’m still wrapping my head around them, myself!

I do think, though, that the imperfect tense is one of the easier French tenses to understand. If you’re talking about something that happened vaguely in the past, or for a period of time in the past, then you’re using the imperfect tense! 

Le dernier film que j'ai vu au cinéma

Hello everyone!

It's the bank holiday weekend, so it's going to be a double feature here on my blog! 

To kick things off, I thought I'd do a bit more practice and, using once again the excellent Learn French with Alexa as an example, answer a question designed for GCSE speaking exams: Quel est le dernier film que tu as vu au cinéma?

Le dernier film que j'ai vu au cinéma était Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Je l'ai vu en Birmingham en décembre avec mes amis. Il est le troisième film de la nouvelle trilogie. Je l'ai trouvé pas mal, mais c'était pas super non plus. Cette trilogie a été décevante, à mon avis, dû au marketing en partie. Je suis une puriste, et je pense que la saga a terminé avec Return of the Jedi - il n'y a pas besoin des autres films comme ça. Plutôt, je pense qu'ils auraient dû faire une trilogie qui raconter une histoire différente. Cela dit, je pense que The Rise of Skywalker était une bonne façon de conclure la trilogie. 

So there you have it, kids! What a blistering critique... let's take a look at what I'm on about - and, as always, if you have any suggestions or corrections, please do leave a comment!

Le dernier film que j'ai vu au cinéma était Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

The opening sentence is very much a statement responding to the question, sticking with the past tense (passé composé and imparfait). I went to see it in December, when it was released, in Birmingham with some friends. So far, nothing too exceptional, just giving a fairly basic response to the question, filling in some details around the cinema trip itself. 

Il est le troisième film de la nouvelle trilogie

So now we're getting a little bit fancy. I think I've mentioned before that adjectives almost always go after the nouns that they describe in French - however, there is a small group of adjectives that go in front of the noun. Nouveau is one such adjective. In addition to the correct placement, we've also got the correct agreement: 'la trilogie' is of course feminine, and therefore 'nouveau' becomes 'nouvelle'. 

Je l'ai trouvé pas mal, mais c'était pas super non plus

Now we're getting into the meat of the answer here, where I'm giving my opinion of the movie. First of all - I'm using 'trouver' to say that "I found the film to be okay". I've read that 'trouver' is used a lot when giving an opinion, moreso than we use "I find it" in English. On top of that, I'm using some fancy adverbial constructions. The sentence means "I thought it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either". You could just say "I thought it wasn't bad" and leave it at that, but adding the "either" ('non plus') just gives it a little bit more flavour, I think.

Cette trilogie a été décevante, à mon avis, dû au marketing en partie

I am actually a big Star Wars nerd, and I'm sure this won't be the last time I'm talking about it here on the blog! I'm continuing with my opinion here - "this trilogy has been let down, in part, by the marketing, I think". Well, Disney did make some big promises about the conclusion to the Skywalker saga, didn't they? Getting back to the French, though, 'à mon avis' means "in my opinion", and is a good way of breaking up the monotony of saying 'je pense que' all the time. Here's an interesting little phrase, as well - 'dû à' means "due to", as in "caused by", an example of using a past participle without the auxiliary verb here. 

Je suis une puriste, et je pense que la saga a terminé avec Return of the Jedi - il n'y a pas besoin des autres films comme ça

Oh, I'm really getting into it now! I am a bit of a purist, when it comes to Star Wars - although, I hope, not obnoxiously so! I just don't think this new trilogy from Disney needed to be made - "il n'y a pas besoin des autres films", there was no need for them. Bit of a fancy statement here, as we can see the idiomatic expression 'il y a' in its negative form. 

Plutôt, je pense qu'ils auraient dû faire une trilogie qui raconter une histoire différente

For me, this is the real jewel of this answer, and was almost the catalyst for writing this blog today. Literally, it means "Rather, I think that they should have made a trilogy that told a different story" - I'm not against new films, after all! But let's stay with the French dissection here. 'Plutôt' is a useful little adverb that I'm trying to use more to give comparisons with things, as I want to try and improve the quality and depth of my French here. 'Ils auraient dû faire' is the star of the sentence - "they should have made". We've got the past conditional, people! I feel like there will be a whole blog devoted to such things as English modal verbs and their French equivalents, as it's an aspect of the language that causes so many people to slip up. Knowing when you're doing it, though, is of course halfway to victory. I am definitely showing off with this sentence, but it's good to show what you can do, right?!

Cela dit, je pense que The Rise of Skywalker était une bonne façon de conclure la trilogie

To finish, I want to make it clear that I didn't think the film was so bad! Of course, there is a bit of a double-edged meaning to this - "it was a good way to conclude the trilogy", after having said I didn't think the trilogy was necessary to begin with! 'Cela dit' means "that said", and is another of these wonderful little phrases that can be popped into the vocabulary to sound a bit more natural. Again, there's probably another blog brewing on these types of words and phrases!

So there we have it! I could probably go on a bit more about this film, of course, but that would be something for a different sort of blog. (If you're interested, I do run another blog that talks about my hobbies and stuff, and have given a review of the film from back when I first watched it, which can be found here). 

I hope that you found this post interesting, and maybe even helpful in some respect! 

The passé composé

Hey everyone!
Following on from my last blog, I thought it was about time I looked back, and took on the passé composé - apparently, the most-used past tense in French (oh yes, there are many...)

The passé composé - or, as it was called when I was in school, the perfect tense - describes an action from the past that has finished. Grammatically speaking, it is perfect. It is a compound tense, which means it is made up of two parts - an auxiliary verb, and the past participle of the main verb.

The what?
Well, remember when I was rambling about the Present Tense, and said that avoir and être are probably the most important verbs in the French language? That's because they're also the auxiliary verbs that are used in all compound tenses. So if you're looking to express yourself in the passé composé, or the pluperfect, or the past subjunctive, or any other compound tense, you need to know both of these verbs inside-out!

Here, though, we're only talking the passé composé - for this, we'll need the present tense of the auxiliary verbs, so let's remind ourselves of those conjugations here:

Wonderful. Next, we'll need the past participle of the verb we want to use in the past tense.

So, as we know, French verbs are either regular or irregular, and some of those irregular verbs are really irregular. This is true of their past participles, as well - although it might please you to know that even some irregular verbs form their past participles in a more regular manner. Anyway! Take a look at the below table to see how the past participle is formed for regular verbs from across the three groups:

As you can see, the first group (-er verbs) drops the ending and adds -é to the stem; the second group (-ir verbs) drops the final 'r', and the third group (regular -re verbs) drops the ending and adds -u. Quite straightforward, really. It only gets tricky when you have to remember that a verb like 'courir' (to run) is an irregular verb, and its past participle is not 'couri' but 'couru'. I have yet to find a good way to remember which verbs are irregular besides memorizing lists, but if I ever do come across such a thing, I'll be sure to let you know!

But what about the auxiliary verbs?
In French compound tenses, it can be difficult to know which verbs require which auxiliary, but there are strict rules on this, so don't worry.

1. First of all, the vast majority of verbs take avoir as their auxiliary. So taking 'finir' from the example above; if we want to say "I have finished", that is "J'ai fini". It's as simple as that.

2. The next broad rule to remember is, all pronominal verbs - that is to say, verbs that come with a pronoun, be it reflexive or reciprocal, or some other sort of thing - all take être. The most often-used pronominal verbs are reflexive verbs, where you talk about an action that reflects back on the subject. Getting up in the morning, getting dressed, brushing your teeth - all of these verbs are, when most often encountered, reflexive. For sure, you can get someone else up, you can dress someone else, but usually you will talk about dressing yourself, or brushing your own teeth. In the dictionary, these verbs will have the pronoun 'se' in front of them - 'se lever' (to get up), 'se laver' (to wash oneself), 's'habiller' (to get dressed).

So, to say "I got dressed", as in, you dressed yourself, that is "Je me suis habillé" - because s'habiller is a regular first-group verb, and the only thing you need to concern yourself with here is the reflexive nature of it, requiring the pronoun 'me' (it literally means "I got myself dressed", we just don't emphasize the reflexive nature in English).

3. Okay, so finally we have the more complicated rule. There is a group of around 25 verbs that take être in compound tenses, with various mnemonics out there to aid in remembering them. To be honest, though, I have more trouble trying to remember mnemonics than just going from a straight-up list!

The sixteen verbs above are the main bunch, but there are a further nine verbs that share a common stem to these, and just add "re-" to the start to show a repeated action:

In grammatical terms, these verbs are all "intransitive" - that is to say, they do not need (and cannot take) a direct object to complete the thought. Discussions of direct objects are best saved for a blog on Pronouns (which I am planning, don't worry!) but suffice it to say, you can say "I was born" without needing to add any further people into the sentence. If thinking of transitive and intransitive verbs is a bit much, think of them as involving movement - though when all else fails, remember that all verbs in the dictionary will have either VT or VI next to them, to indicate how they are used. Handy hint for you, there!

There is also an exception to this - as always!. Décéder (to pass away) is a very formal verb that isn't as often encountered as mourir for the same sentiment.

As if all of this isn't bad enough, five of those verbs in the table above can be used transitively - that is to say, they require more than just the subject of the verb to express a thought. These verbs have a different meaning when used as such, and take avoir as their auxiliary:

So if you want to say "I went upstairs", it's "je suis monté l'escalier", while "I put the tent up" would be "j'ai monté la tente".

I mean, all of this is pretty high-level stuff, let's be honest! Let's get back to the passé composé...

So we have the majority of verbs in the past tense taking avoir as an auxiliary verb. Those verbs where the action reflects back on the subject, and those verbs involving movement, take être as an auxiliary verb.

Going back to our examples of past participles up top there, in the past tense we have j'ai regardé (I watched), j'ai fini (I finished), but je suis descendu (I went down).

Agreement
Ah yes, there are more problems to overcome!

See, past participles are often required to agree with their subject, such as is the case with those verbs requiring être as an auxiliary (but pronominal verbs are a very special case - this blog is already getting long and confusing, so we'll cover this another time!). For example, as a gentleman I would say "je suis allé" (I went), but if I were talking about my other half, it would be "elle est allée", because she's female. Jolly good.

However, those verbs taking avoir require agreement with any preceding direct object. Let's look at this example: "Voilà l'erreur que j'ai faite" (here is the error that I made). L'erreur is feminine singular, and so the past participle (fait) needs to agree with it, so we add an 'e' to the end there.

All of this is fairly high-level stuff once again, and probably something that I'll cover in the future, but it's definitely something that we need to be aware of!

But what is it used for?
I said at the start of this post that, when I was back in school, this was called the perfect tense - perfect being the grammatical term for "complete". An action that you did, either once or a defined number of times, is expressed through the passé composé.

So:
 - j'ai bu du café ce matin (I drank coffee this morning)

 - j'ai bu du café trois fois la semaine dernière (I drank coffee three times last week)

Where things might get confusing is the frequency with which the passé composé is used alongside the imperfect tense. Most commonly, the imperfect is used to give context to a past action, as in "something was happening when something else happened". The imperfect tense is what "was happening" and the passé composé is what "happened".

 - il pleuvait quand j'ai bu du café ce matin (it was raining when I drank coffee this morning)

It's definitely the sort of thing that gets easier to handle over time! I've said it before on this blog, but having studied French at GCSE level has really helped me in certain aspects, and the passé composé is one of the more obvious ones. Somehow, I managed to not only get a very high mark at GCSE, but also at A level, with only ever having studied the passé composé, the imperfect, and the future tenses. Nowadays, it seems folks are doing all sorts, even the subjunctive, as part of their school studies! While I may lament the shortcomings in my own education in this way, there's no doubt that spending two years working on the two main past tenses has given me a solid grounding for when to use each one (though I'll still slip up, don't get me wrong!)

Practice, as they say, makes perfect!

Le week-end dernier

Hey everyone!
Time for another post here, as I try to put into practice all of the bits and pieces that I've been learning over the last week or so. This week was mainly taken up with trying to get to grips with adverbs to provide a bit more texture to my French, as well as the adverbial pronouns y and en. Don't worry if it all sounds a bit like gibberish to you at the moment, I'm planning to write up a blog here soon that pulls together all the stuff I've been learning like this, so I'll explain all in due course!

For today's blog, I thought I'd continue much in the vein of my previous, introductory post, and present a bit of a written thing that I'll then deconstruct. I've been watching a lot of Learn French with Alexa on youtube, some quality content there presented in a beautifully clear and concise way! She has a series of videos on her channel that presents model answers to GCSE French questions, and I thought it would be a good place to build from on my own blog here, so I've started with this one:


Qu'est-ce que tu as fait le week-end dernier? What did you do last weekend?

Le week-end dernier, je prenais soin du bébé dans l'ensemble. Le week-end, j'essaie donner une pause à ma femme, qui prend soin d'elle pendant la semaine. C'est travaille dur, mais Phoebe est charmante, et ça vaut le peine!

Samedi soir, on a regardé un film, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, c'était géant. J'aime les soirées cinéma, je préfère regarder les films chez moi par opposition à les regarde au cinéma, parce que j'aime le petit confort! Cependant, j'aime y aller quelquefois pour un grand film.

Dimanche, j'ai mangé les œufs pochés pour le petit déjeuner. Pendant la semaine, je n'ai pas de temps pour le petit déjeuner en d'habitude, donc je prends l'occasion quand je peux faire. C'est le repas que j'aime le plus, et j'aimerais le manger plus souvent. 

J'ai continué mes études en français aussi, et j'ai commencé écrire ce blog sur mes efforts. Ce faisant, je suis inspiré à m'améliorer.

I'm very excited about this answer, as it has a lot of bits and bobs that I like. I'm not sure about some of the word order - so if you can help, please do leave a comment!

Le week-end dernier, je prenais soin du bébé dans l'ensemble.
I just want to start by pointing something out here - the positioning of the word "dernier" can change the meaning of the sentence, so if it is placed before the noun - le dernier week-end - it means the last, final weekend. With this word order - le week-end dernier - it means the most recent weekend. There are a whole bunch of adjectives like this, and it's one of the things that makes French both interesting and maddening to learn!

Anyway! This first sentence pretty much sums up life right now, and if I continue to write about myself here, you'll quickly grow tired of hearing about it! I was looking after the baby in the main. I'm not sure about the placement for the expression "dans l'ensemble", though I think it's probably best left on the end of the sentence. While the context of this question suggests an answer in the perfect tense, I've started it in the imperfect, because the action of looking after the baby was not done once and was then over, but rather it was a continuous action for the period in question. 

Le week-end, j'essaie donner une pause à ma femme, qui prend soin d'elle pendant la semaine. 
Here's an interesting point. The addition of "le" at the start here gives the notion of habitual action - so "le week-end" in this instance means "on the weekends". Anyway! I try to give my wife a break, as she looks after our daughter all week - that's what I'm trying to say here. Confession time; a lot of this took some fair old dictionary-work (something I'm going to cover in a future blog), and the only phrase I could find was "to take a break", so I'm guessing "to give a break" would be donner une pause, but that is a guess!

I like the little idiom that ends the opening paragraph - ça vaut le peine. Wherever I can, I like to sprinkle these things in, and it's been something of a focus for my French learning journey (I'll be covering this in a future blog, as well!)

Samedi soir, on a regardé un film
Next, we watched a film on Saturday night. I came across this somewhere online a couple of months ago - while "we" in French is translated as "nous", in modern French this is being replaced more and more with "on", the third person pronoun meaning "one" or "we" in the general sense of "people". However, used in this way, "on" gives a notion of exclusivity, so when I'm talking about my wife and myself doing something to a group (such as you fine people online), I want to exclude you from the verb, because it wasn't all of us doing it, it was just my wife and I. If I wanted to include you all, then it would be "nous". I'm not sure how accurate this is, and whether it's widely accepted or just a local thing, but I wanted to bring it up here and see if we could get a conversation going, so let me know in the comments if you know anything more on this!

J'aime les soirées cinéma
Who doesn't love a movie night?! Even though the context of this response is "what did I do", as in the past tense, I wanted to slip into the present tense for moments of explanation like this, as I think it gives more context and allows for some level of nuance. If you watched the video above, you'll see Alexa prefers you to stick to the tense of the question, but while that's probably more important for a three or four sentence spoken answer, for a written missive like this, I like to play around a bit more - and to show off, as you'll see!

Cependant, j'aime y aller quelquefois pour un grand film
Oh, I like this sentence a lot! It's definitely in the realms of showing off, as I'm using conjunctions and adverbial pronouns, adverbs and adjectives! "J'aime y aller" means "I like to go there", and makes use of the adverbial pronoun that I mentioned at the start of this post. French has a ton of pronouns, and there's something very French about using en and y like this - to my mind, at least! Also - take note: almost all French adjectives go after the nouns that they describe, except for a small handful, of which "grand" is one. It's the sort of thing you just need to learn the list for, really.

J'ai mangé les œufs pochés pour le petit déjeuner
I wanted to go to town a bit with this part - mainly because it's about food, and who doesn't love to talk about food?! Firstly, an aside - "eggs" in French is œufs, not oeufs. I've read somewhere that to not type the ligature is considered a spelling mistake, in the same way as to miss off accents from words. Interesting, huh?

So, I had poached eggs for breakfast. Normally, I don't have the time for breakfast in the mornings, so when possible I like to have a proper breakfast. That's pretty much the sum of the paragraph there, but I couldn't resist getting a bit fancy here:

J'aimerais le manger plus souvent
"I would like to eat it more often". It's the conditional mood, folks! I'm planning to cover this in a separate post, for sure, but I thought I'd point it out here as being a bit fancy - again, as Alexa says in her video, when you can go into other tenses and moods, it's always good to show off a bit! When learning French at school, I remember we were taught "je voudrais", as "I would like", but that was the sum total of our lessons on the conditional. It's great to be able to give more depth to answers with stuff like this, and it allows you to really go beyond the sort of dull, monochrome responses.

J'ai commencé écrire ce blog
Ah yes, how could I not mention the fact that, last weekend, I started this blog?! Hopefully it's something that will continue for a long time to come, anyway!

Ce faisant, je suis inspiré à m'améliorer
To finish with, then, I've dropped in another adverb (the answer is peppered with them), "ce faisant", which means "in doing so". Splendid!

Whether or not I have improved from the first post, I'll let you all decide for yourselves! Like I said at the beginning, I'm hoping to use these sorts of posts to put into practice what I've been learning over the course of the week, so I've been trying to drop in some adverbs where possible. It has mainly been an exercise in the passé composé, or perfect past tense. This will be the subject of my next blog, I think, where I attempt to explain what it is (in order to cement the idea into my own mind!) So look out for that one in the coming days!

Thanks for reading - à bientôt!