Download simple and compound Tenses.

REPUBLIC BOLIVARIANA OF VENEZUELA
MINISTRY OF POWER FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY YACAMBU
FACULTY OF LEGAL AND POLICY
RIGHT
Prepared by :
Orquídea Rodríguez 19.164.950
[email protected]
July, 2014
SIMPLE TENSES
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Tense is the form a verb takes to indicate a particular time period. Roughly speaking,
the tense indicates whether something happened in the past, the present or the future.
The tense structure of French is quite similar to English, though there is no perfect oneto-one correspondence of one tense to another.
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Tenses are simple or compound, depending on whether the tense is indicated by an
ending on the verb itself (simple) or by an auxiliary verb (compound).
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Simple: Elle va, nous allons, ils allaient, elles iront
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Compound: Elle est allée, nous serions allés, il était allé
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We shall be limiting ourselves in this section to four simple tenses, whose salient
features and equivalents in English are shown below. Compound Tensesare treated in
a separate section. The tenses we will deal with here are the present, the imperfect, the
future and the conditional present. The Past definite(also known as the passé simple,
and past historic) is dealt with in a separate page.
PRESENT TENSE
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Elle mange, finit, vend
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She eats, finishes, sells
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Elles mangent, finissent, vendent
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They eat...
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Recognition
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The present is recognizable mostly by the absence of special endings used on the other tenses.
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Imperfect tense
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Il mangeait, finissait, vendait
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He was eating, was finishing, was selling
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Ils mangeaient, finissaient, vendaient
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They were eating, were finishing, were selling
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Recognition
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Words ending in -ait or -aient are very probably verbs in the imperfect tense.
FUTURE TENSE,
PRESENT CONDITIONAL TENSE
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Future tense
Elle mangera, finira, vendra
She will eat, will finish, will sell
Elles mangeront, finiront, vendront
Recognition
Words ending in -ra or -ront are likely to be verbs in the future tense.
Present Conditional tense
Il mangerait, finirait, vendrait
He would eat...
Ils mangeraient, finiraient, vendraient
Recognition
Words ending in -rait or -raient are likely to be verbs in the present conditional tense.
A few examples
Les différents producteurs ne voulaient pas travailler ensemble.
The various producers didn't want to work together.
Nos exportations aux Etats-Unis connaissent un boom.
Our exports to the United States are having (literally, are knowing) a boom.
Cette jeune entreprise dominera le marché.
This young company will dominate the market.
Sur deux carottes qu'il produit, une aboutira dans l'assiette d'un Américain.
For each two carrots he produces, one will end up in an American plate.
S'ils réussissaient, ils auraient le marché pour eux.
If they succeeded they would have the market all to themselves.
COMPOUND TENSES

Tense is the form a verb takes to indicate a particular time period. Roughly
speaking, the tense indicates whether something happened in the past, the
present or the future. The tense structure of French is quite similar to English,
though there is no perfect one-to-one correspondence of one tense to another.

Tenses are simple or compound, depending on whether the tense is indicated by
an ending on the verb itself (simple) or by an Auxiliary Verb (compound).

Simple: Elle va, nous allons, ils allaient, elles iront
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Compound: Elle est allée, nous serions allés, il était allé
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We shall be limiting ourselves in this section to three compound tenses, whose
salient features and equivalents in English are shown below. The tenses we will
deal with here are the passé composé, the pluperfect and the past
conditional.
FORMS, PASSÉ COMPOSÉ
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Forms
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These tenses are called "compound" because they are made up of two parts: the past participle of the verb,
usually ending in -é, -i or -u, preceded by different tenses of the verb avoir (to have) or être (to be).
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The Auxiliary verb avoir is used with most verbs to form these tenses. Être is used with most verbs of movement,
a few others, and with all Pronominal Verbs. When reading, you need to be careful not to confuse tenses
with être as the auxiliary (il est allé = he went) with the normal use of the verb to be (il est ridicule = he is
ridiculous).
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Passé composé
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Il a mangé, a fini, est allé
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(he ate, has eaten; finished, has finished; went, has gone...)
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Elles ont mangé, ont fini, sont allées
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Pluperfect (Plus-que-parfait) or Past Perfect
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Il avait mangé, avait fini, était allé
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(he had eaten, had finished, had gone)
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Elles avaient mangé, avaient fini, étaient allées
PAST CONDITIONAL
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Past Conditional
Il aurait mangé, aurait fini, serait allé
(he would have eaten, would have finished, would
have gone)
Elles auraient mangé, auraient fini, seraient allées
Examples
Le Mexique a tout de suite signé l'accord.
Mexico signed the agreement at once.
Il avait attendu jusqu'au dernier moment.
He had waited until the last moment.
Si la société torontoise n'avait pas emprunté en
dollars américains, elle aurait perdu moins d'argent.
If the Toronto firm had not borrowed in American
dollars, it would have lost less money.