quirks with the imperfect tense in French

You may recall my post on how to form the imperfect tense in French. I mentioned some freakiness with the double-i:

Nous étudiions. (We were studying.)

Nous skiions. (We were skiing.)

Another quirk to watch out for has to do with the letters c and g. I believe I've explained this in another post, but to reiterate:

When placed in front of the vowels a and o, the consonants c and g undergo a slight change if they're to be pronounced softly (i.e., the "s" sound for c, the "zh" sound for g): the c gains a cedilla, and the g takes on an extra e after it.

Examples: le français, nous mangeons

This is relevant when forming the imperfect tense. Take commencer, for example:

je commençais (note the cedilla)
tu commençais
elle commençait
nous commencions (note the lack of cedilla, because the c is followed by an i, not a or o)
vous commenciez
ils commençaient (cedilla again!)

Now watch what happens with manger:

je mangeais (note the additional e)
tu mangeais
il mangeait
nous mangions (no e!)
vous mangiez
elles mangeaient (e again!)

Keep these changes in mind as you master l'imparfait!


_

contrastive tenses: l'imparfait et le passé composé

First a quick review of the French imperfect tense (l'imparfait), then a little demonstration of how the tense is used contrastively.

To form the imperfect tense, remove the "-ons" ending from the first-person plural conjugation of a verb to create a stem:

parler: parlons: parl-
choisir: choisissons: choisiss-
vendre: vendons: vend-
prendre: prenons: pren-
appeler: appelons: appel-
lire: lisons: lis-
vouloir: voulons: voul-
savoir: savons: sav-
devoir: devons: dev-

(irregular form) être: ét-

(etc.)

Depending on person and number, add these endings:

je: -ais
tu: -ais
il/elle/on: -ait
nous: -ions
vous: -iez
ils/elles


In French, the imperfect tense is equivalent to the past progressive tense in English: was ...ing. So:

Je parlais = I was speaking
Tu choisissais = You were choosing
Elle vendait = She was selling
Nous prenions = We were taking
Vous appeliez = You were calling
Ils lisaient = They (masc.) were reading
Je voulais = I was wanting (to)...
Tu savais = You knew (a bit awkward to translate this is as "You were knowing")
Il devait = He had to...


As in English, French verb tenses can be used contrastively. Here's an English example of a contrast between the past progressive and the simple past tense:

I was sleeping when my cell phone rang.

In French, the same contrast is expressed with l'imparfait and le passé composé. To wit:

Je dormais quand mon portable a sonné.

The imperfect tense is used for the "background action," i.e., for actions or events that occur over a period of time. The passé composé, like the simple past tense in English, is used for the "interrupting action," i.e., for actions or events that tend to be sudden and of very short duration. In the above examples, sleeping is the background action; the phone's ringing is the interrupting action.

What if I gave you a problem like this:

Je (regarder) la télé quand le martien (frapper) à la porte.

You'd ask yourself, first, what the background action was: watching TV or the Martian knocking? Obviously, watching TV occurs over a longer period of time than a sudden knock, so regarder should be in the imperfect. Thus:

Je regardais la télé quand le martien a frappé à la porte.

Try this one, which may be a bit more difficult:

Mes copains (arriver) quand je/j' (être) dans la salle à manger.

What's the background action? My being in the dining room or my friends' arriving? It helps to remember that, technically speaking, an arrival happens in a single moment-- the moment the arriving person or thing stops moving. It's only at the very instant that my friends are at the door that I can say they have arrived. Knowing this, we can say that:

Mes copains sont arrivés quand j'étais dans la salle à manger.
My friends arrived when I was in the dining room.

Try your hand at the following sentences.

1. Maman (parler) au téléphone quand notre chat (miauler). (miauler = to meow/mew)

2. Nous (conduire) quand nous (percuter) le cerf. (le cerf = the deer; percuter = to hit, crash into)

3. Quand il (casser) son crayon, je/j' (étudier).

4. Robert et Maxine (skier) quand le bâtiment (exploser). (bâtiment = building)

5. Tu (être) où quand le vol (avoir lieu)? (vol = theft; avoir lieu = to take place)


Final note: The imperfect tense can lead to strange spellings, especially the double-i in the nous form:

Nous étudiions (the imperfect stem of étudier is étudi-)
Nous skiions (the imperfect stem of skier is ski-)

Beware!


_

le futur proche

The near-future tense in French is a way of saying "going to," and corresponds, for the most part, to the way we use "going to" in English. The basic construction in French involves the conjugated form of the verb aller plus the infinitive form of the required verb.

sujet + (ne/n') aller [conjugué] (pas) + infinitif

PRÉSENT: Je vais au ciné. (I'm going to the cinema.)
FUTUR PROCHE (affirmatif): Je vais aller au ciné. (I'm going to go to the cinema.)
FUTUR PROCHE (négatif): Je ne vais pas aller au cinéma. (I'm not going to go to the cinema)

Other examples:

1. Elle va faire la vaisselle après le souper.
2. Va-t-il comprendre?
3. Où vont-ils le trouver?

Example (3), above, brings in the idea of direct and indirect objects, and how to place them inside a futur proche construction. The grammatical rule is simple enough: place all objects, direct and indirect, right before the infinitive, and never inside the ne/pas negation. For instance:

1. Où va-t-elle le trouver? (Where's she going to find him/it?)
2. Je vais le faire dans un instant. (I'm going to do it in a moment.)
3. Elle va lui en parler demain. (She's going to talk to him about it tomorrow.)
4. Je te promets que je vais y réfléchir. (I promise you that I'm going to think about it.)
5. Nous allons leur proposer une solution. (We're going to propose a solution to them.)
6. Ils vont nous traquer. (They're going to track/hunt us.)
7. L'écureuil ne va pas les partager. (The squirrel's not going to share them.)
8. Tu ne vas pas le lire? (You're not going to read it?)
9. Ne vas-tu pas le faire? (Aren't you going to do it?)

Try changing the following sentences from the present to the near-future tense.

1. Je fais du jogging chaque jour.
2. Tu y penses.
3. Le fait-il?
4. Nous jouons au foot.
5. Visitez-vous Paris?
6. Elles prennent le train.
7. Pourquoi n'étudies-tu pas le chinois?
8. Pourquoi ne l'étudies-tu pas?

Answers (highlight the space between the brackets to see):

[
1. Je vais faire du jogging chaque jour.
2. Tu vas y penser.
3. Va-t-il le faire?
4. Nous allons jouer au foot.
5. Allez-vous visiter Paris?
6. Vont-elles prendre le train?
7. Pourquoi ne vas-tu pas étudier le chinois?
8. Pourquoi ne vas-tu pas l'étudier?
]


_

les verbes avec l'auxiliaire être

I. Verbs conjugated in the present perfect with "to be" as the auxiliary

I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.

--the Bhagavad Gita, as quoted by scientist Robert Oppenheimer, one of the "fathers" of the atomic bomb

You don't hear it much in modern English, but in older English, it was common for some verbs, especially verbs of motion and verbs of change of state, to be paired with "to be" instead of "to have" in the past tense. The above Oppenheimer quote is an example of this: "I am become Death" instead of "I have become Death." In Stephen R. Donaldson's The One Tree, a powerful character named Infelice arrives at a gathering and announces her presence by saying: I am come.

This should alert you to the fact that not all verbs are conjugated in the present perfect with the auxiliary (i.e., helping verb) "to have." There are verbs that take "to be" as their auxiliary.

II. La maison d'être

In modern French (and in German, too, by the way*), a certain set of verbs is still conjugated in this manner. French teachers teach these verbs in several different ways, but one of the more prominent ways (aside from invoking "MRS. D.R. VANDERTRAMPP"**) is to use a visual aid called "La maison d'être," or "the House of être." See below:

(reference found here)


III. Some quirks of être verbs

As in older English, French être verbs (henceforth "E-verbs") are those that involve motion or a change of state. When you conjugate an E-verb au passé composé, the past participle must agree with the gender and number of the subject. To wit:

Je suis monté(e)
Tu es monté(e)
Il est monté
Elle est montée
Nous sommes monté(e)s
Vous êtes monté(e)(s) (remember, with "vous," this could be singular!)
Ils sont montés
Elles sont montées

Another quirk to remember is that certain E-verbs can also be conjugated with avoir if they're transitive (i.e., transferring their action from the subject to an object or objects; see here for more info). Some E-verbs that can also be A-verbs:

passer: J'ai passé le livre à mon frère. (I passed the book to my brother.)
descendre: J'ai descendu les bagages. (I took down the bags.)
         (Or, more sinisterly) J'ai descendu le flic. (I killed the cop.)
sortir: J'ai sorti la poubelle. (I took out the garbage.)
monter: J'ai monté mon sac à dos. (I've put up my backpack.)

There are others, but you get the idea. If the E-verb is being used transitively, i.e., with an object, then it's actually an A-verb in that context. Be very careful with this!


IV. Les verbes pronominaux et les verbes réfléchis: pronominal and reflexive verbs

There is an entire class of verb that is always conjugated with être: le verbe pronominal. A subtype of this verb is le verbe réfléchi, or reflexive verb. In the infinitive form, such verbs have the pronoun "se" in front of them.

The pronoun se normally means something like "(to) oneself/each other," but sometimes there's no good reason for the se to be there. In such cases, the pronoun se is simply a pronoun and implies no reflexivity. A good example of this is the verb s'apercevoir, to notice/realize, which can be both pronominal and reflexive.

PRONOMINAL: Elle s'aperçoit que son mari n'est pas revenu. (She realizes that her husband hasn't come back.)
REFLEXIVE: Elle s'aperçoit dans la glace. (She notices herself in the mirror.)

Elle s'est aperçue que son mari n'était pas revenu. (She realized her husband hadn't come back.)
Elle s'est aperçue dans la glace. (She noticed herself in the mirror.)

As you see above, the se plays no real role in the pronominal sentence.

Now look at the following reflexive verbs:

Ils se parlent. = They talk/speak to each other.
Ils se sont parlé. = They talked/spoke to each other.

Elles se voient. = They (fem.) see each other.
Elles se sont vues. = They saw each other.

Elle se parle. = She talks to herself.
Elle s'est parlé. = She talked to herself.

Did you notice something? In the above se parler examples, the participle parlé did NOT receive an "e" or an "s"! Why? Because in this instance, the pronoun se is an indirect object. The original verb is parler à [quelqu'un], so parler takes an indirect object. You can see this when parler is used non-reflexively:

Je parle à Jeanne. Je lui parle. (lui = indirect object)
J'ai parlé à Jeanne. Je lui ai parlé. (not "Je lui ai parlée.")
Je parle à Jeanne et Hélène. Je leur parle. (leur = indirect object)
J'ai parlé à Jeanne et Hélène. Je leur ai parlé. (not "Je leur ai parlées.")

Compare this to the past-tense rule for direct objects, where there is agreement in gender and number:

J'ai vu Jeanne hier. (Jeanne = direct object)
Je l'ai vue hier. (the participle is inflected as feminine singular)

Let's look at an example with a reflexive verb:

se donner des cadeaux = to give each other gifts

Ils se donnent des cadeaux. (présent)
Ils se sont donné des cadeaux. (passé composé)

Why not "se sont donnés," with an "s" at the end? Because the direct object is cadeaux, while se (each other) is the indirect object. No agreement necessary.

V. L'intérrogation! (The quiz!)

Ecrivez la bonne locution au passé composé.

1. Elle _____ (se voir) dans la glace.

2. Ils _____ (se donner) des compliments.

3. Il _____ (tomber) de la falaise (cliff).

4. Elle _____ (naître) en 1995.

5. Vous _____ (passer) par le même bâtiment trois fois!

6. Je lui _____ (passer) le sel.

7. Nous _____ (monter) les valises.

8. Elles _____ (descendre) de la montagne.

9. Ils _____ (aller) voir leur famille en France.

10. Tu _____ (sortir) le chien?

LES REPONSES (highlight the space between the brackets to see the answers):
[
1. s'est vue
2. se sont donné (no "s"!!)
3. est tombé
4. est née
5. êtes passé/passée/passés/passées ("vous" can be sing., pl., masc., fem.)
6. ai passé
7. avons monté
8. sont descendues
9. sont allés
10. as sorti
]

Vous avez eu 10 sur 10, j'espère...!

---

*German examples:
Ich bin gekommen. = I have come. (not Ich habe gekommen.)
Er ist gegangen. = He has gone. (not Er hat gegangen.)

**The mnemonic "MRS. D.R. VANDERTRAMPP" is an acrostic for remembering a cluster of être verbs. To wit:

Monter (motion)
Rester (motion, or lack thereof)
Sortir (motion)

Devenir (change of state)
Retourner (motion)

Venir (motion)
Aller (motion)
Naître (change of state)
Descendre (motion)
Entrer (motion)
Revenir (motion)
Tomber (motion)
Rentrer (motion)
Arriver (motion)
Monter (motion)
Partir (motion)
Passer (par) (motion)