Catherine:	Pour pratiquer le passé simple, parlons d’une grande famille de génies : la famille Saussure.
Alexandre:	Saussure était un linguiste, il me semble, non ?
Catherine:	C’est vrai, c’est Ferdinand de Saussure qui finit par être le plus célèbre membre de la famille de Saussure. Mais commençons par parler de ses illustres ancêtres.
Alexandre:	De quelle région venaient-ils ?
Catherine:	Ses ancêtres, originaires de Lorraine, se convertirent au protestantisme et s’installèrent en Suisse au 16ème siècle suite aux persécutions religieuses. Le premier scientifique de la famille fut Horace-Bénédict. Il gravit de nombreuses montagnes et il est considéré aujourd’hui comme le père de l’alpinisme.
Alexandre:	Je croyais que le père de l’alpinisme était l’aventurier britannique William Windham qui accomplit l’ascension du Montenvers.

The passé simple is a tense that is mainly used to narrate events in the distant past. It is used in written discourse such as stories, tales, biographies, and history articles. It is also used in formal speech. It expresses an action or a precise event that happened in the past. Differentiating between the passé simple and the imperfect tense has often been confusing for French learners. The imperfect tense expresses habits in the past, long actions in the past, descriptions in the past, whereas the passé simple generally expresses quick and sudden actions in the past. The emphasis is not on the duration of the action as much as it is on the action itself. In this chapter we will focus on the form of the passé simple. We will also learn about the use of the passé simple through examples.

In French, the verbs are divided into three groups. The first group comprises the verbs ending in “er”. The second group comprises the verbs ending in “ir”. Both the verbs of the first group and second group are called regular verbs because they conjugate the same way. The verbs of the third group are called irregular because their conjugation don’t follow a specific rule.

In this lesson we will study the verbs of the second group in the passé simple.

Conjugation of the verb finir into the passé simple.

Je finis Tu finis Il finit Elle finit On finit Nous finîmes Vous finîtes Ils finirent Elles finirent

For example:

Quand il finit de manger, il appela ses enfants.
When he finished eating, he called up his children.

So, to conjugate a verb of the second group into the passé simple, we remove the final “ir” from the infinitive and add: is, it, îmes, îtes, irent. We don’t forget to add the circumflex accent to the “i” in the first and second person plural.

Without looking at the conjugation above, try to conjugate the verb choisir to the passé simple using the example above. Then check to see if you did it correctly.

Je choisis Tu choisis Il choisit Elle choisit On choisit Nous choisîmes Vous choisîtes Ils choisirent Elles choisirent

For example:

Après une heure de concertation, nous choisîmes de rester dans notre ville natale.
After an hour of consultation, we chose to stay in our hometown.

The verbs of the second group all end in “ir”, but not all verbs ending in “ir” belong to the second group. Some of them belong to the third. So how do we know whether a verb belongs to the second or third group. To determine whether a verb ending in “ir” belongs to the second or third group we find its present participle. If its present participle ends in “issant” then it belongs to the second group. If it ends differently then it belongs to the third group.

Examples:

The verb avertir belongs to the second group because its present participle is “avertissant” and it ends in “issant”.

The verb partir belongs to the third group because its present participle is “partant”. It doesn’t end in “issant”.

The interrogative Form

There are three ways of asking questions in French:

The est-ce que form: Standard form The subject/verb or auxiliary inversion: Formal form The intonation: Colloquial form

Using the “est-ce que form” with the passé simple: To ask questions using the “est-ce que form” in the passé simple, we simply add “est-ce que” to the question.

Let’s start with a simple statement.

Est-ce qu’ils obéirent aux ordres du roi ?
Did they obey the king’s orders?

As you can see, all we did is add “est-ce que” to the sentence.

The inversion form: Let’s take the simple phrase: envahir nos terres and conjugate it into the passé simple in the interrogative form.

Envahis-je nos terres ? Envahis-tu nos terres ? Envahit-il nos terres ? Envahit-elle nos terres ? Envahit-on nos terres ? Envahîmes-nous nos terres ? Envahîtes-vous nos terres ? Envahirent-ils nos terres ? Envahirent-elles nos terres ?

Remember: The passé simple is especially used in literary tales so the inversion form is never used in speech and rarely used in writing.

The Negative form

Le’ts conjugate the verb ne pas bondir.

Je ne bondis pas Tu ne bondis pas Il ne bondit pas Elle ne bondit pas On ne bondit pas Nous ne bondîmes pas Vous ne bondîtes pas Ils ne bondirent pas Elles ne bondirent pas