| Let's look at the sentence pattern. |
| Do you remember how the character said, |
| "Saturday I went fishing with my dad at dawn." |
| Samedi, je suis allé pêcher avec mon père à l'aube. |
| Samedi, je suis allé pêcher avec mon père à l'aube. |
| This sentence follows a version of le passé composé, a past tense used in French to describe completed actions. |
| The pattern we see here is: |
| Subject + [être in present] + [past participle of main verb] |
| Here's how the line from the dialogue uses the pattern. |
| Samedi, je suis allé pêcher avec mon père à l'aube. |
| The subject is je, meaning "I." |
| This is followed by suis, the present tense of the verb être, which is used here as a helping verb. |
| Then we have allé, the past participle of the verb aller, which means "to go." |
| Finally, the phrase pêcher avec mon père à l'aube means "fishing with my dad at dawn." |
| So, the full sentence means: "I went fishing with my dad at dawn." |
| In French, most verbs use the verb avoir to form le passé composé. But some verbs, especially verbs of movement or position, use être instead. Aller is one of those verbs. |
| Now let's look at another example from the dialogue: |
| Je suis resté à la maison pour regarder le match. |
| "I stayed home to watch the match." |
| This sentence uses the same structure. The verb rester, meaning "to stay," also uses être in lepassé composé. |
| But not all verbs work this way. Look at this sentence: |
| Nous, on a gagné notre tournoi deux-zéro. |
| "We won our tournament two to zero." |
| This sentence uses the verb gagner, meaning "to win," and it uses avoir in le passé composé. Most regular verbs, like gagner, use avoir to form the past tense. |
| Let's review the difference. |
| When you want to talk about a completed action in the past in French, you usually use le passé composé. |
| Most verbs follow this pattern: |
| Subject + avoir in the present + the past participle of the main verb. |
| For example: On a gagné. "We won." |
| But verbs that describe movement, like aller, partir, arriver, or rester, and all reflexive verbs, use this pattern instead: |
| Subject + être in the present + the past participle + agreement. |
| For example: Je suis allé… "I went…" |
| Also, when you use être, the past participle has to agree with the subject. That means it changes depending on whether the subject is masculine or feminine, singular or plural. |
| For example: if you’re a girl, you would say “je suis allée,” adding an “e” to match your gender. |
| Now you can use this pattern to talk about where you went and what you did over the weekend in French! |
| Now let's look at some speaking examples. |
| Je suis allé(e) au cinéma samedi soir. |
| "I went to the movies on Saturday night." |
| Can you see how the pattern applies here? |
| Let's break it down: |
| The subject is je, meaning "I." |
| This is followed by suis, the present tense of the verb être. Then we have allé, the past participle of the verb aller, which means "to go." |
| If the speaker is female, the past participle must agree and becomes allée with an additional “e”. |
| Finally, the phrase au cinéma samedi soir. means "to the movies on Saturday night." |
| So, the full sentence means: "I went to the movies on Saturday night." |
| Here's another example |
| Je suis resté(e) à la maison tout le week-end. |
| "I stayed home all weekend." |
| Je suis resté(e) à la maison tout le week-end. |
| "I stayed home all weekend." |
| Let's try one more, |
| Nous sommes sortis avec des amis samedi soir. |
| "We went out with friends on Saturday night." |
| Nous sommes sortis avec des amis samedi soir. |
| "We went out with friends on Saturday night." |
| Another one. |
| Elle est arrivée en retard au déjeuner. |
| "She arrived late for lunch." |
| Elle est arrivée en retard au déjeuner. |
| "She arrived late for lunch." |
| One last example. |
| Ils sont partis tôt dimanche matin. |
| "They left early Sunday morning." |
| Ils sont partis tôt dimanche matin. |
| "They left early Sunday morning." |
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