{"id":9985,"date":"2011-09-29T11:09:20","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T15:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=9985"},"modified":"2014-06-16T20:36:19","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T18:36:19","slug":"be-always-composed-with-le-passe-compose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/be-always-composed-with-le-passe-compose\/","title":{"rendered":"Le pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9 in French"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8220;<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Pass\u00e9 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">compos\u00e9<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span>&#8220;&#8230; Two distinct words when coupled together can saw a bit of confusion in the minds of many, many, helpless new French learners<strong>!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>Qu&#8217;\u00e0 cela ne tienne<\/em><\/strong> (nevermind), we&#8217;ll try in today&#8217;s post to shed some light on the different uses of this type of grammatical tense &#8211; so you won&#8217;t feel too &#8220;tense&#8221; about it anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In other words, be always composed with &#8220;<em><strong>le pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>&#8220;!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Today&#8217;s linguists prefer actually to speak of &#8220;<strong><em>tiroir verbal<\/em><\/strong>&#8221; (literally &#8220;verbal drawer&#8221;) instead of <em><strong>temps grammatical<\/strong><\/em>, and what was called for a while &#8220;<em><strong>pr\u00e9t\u00e9rit ind\u00e9fini<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; would only later be rechristened &#8220;<em><strong>pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It is maybe this change in name that caused the grammatical function of the <em><strong>pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0to become less and less clear -even to a great deal of native French speakers!- especially since there also exist other <em><strong>temps compos\u00e9s<\/strong><\/em> of <em><strong>le mode indicatif <\/strong><\/em>(the &#8220;<em>mode indicatif<\/em>&#8221; is known as &#8220;<strong>realis mood<\/strong>&#8221; in English.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Now, having said that, what&#8217;s really important to know about the use of\u00a0<em><strong>le pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9 <\/strong><\/em>before anything else is that it is\u00a0mainly for <em><strong>le discours <\/strong><\/em>(the speech)&#8212;in the grammatical sense of the word.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It expresses events which are completely <em><strong>achev\u00e9s <\/strong><\/em>(finished)\u00a0at some point in the past with respect to the present.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It is different from\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>le pass\u00e9 simple<\/strong><\/em><\/span>, in which case <em><strong>le sujet <\/strong><\/em>(the subject)\u00a0is dissociated from the time of speech.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">With <em><strong>le pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>, the emphasis is on *<strong>the present effect or effects*\u00a0<\/strong>resulting from an action that took place and totally ceased in the past.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8220;<em><strong>S&#8217;il <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">avait \u00e9t\u00e9<\/span>\u00a0le jouet de son imagination, l&#8217;avenir ne tarderait pas \u00e0 le d\u00e9sabuser<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; (&#8220;If he had been the toy of her imagination, future would not take long before disenchanting him&#8221;, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/all-for-one-and-one-for-al-exandre-dumas\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Alexandre Dumas<\/span><\/a>, <em>L&#8217;\u00eele de feu<\/em>: Volume 1 &#8211; Page 146<\/strong>)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>&#8220;<strong>Elle <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">est n\u00e9e<\/span><\/strong><strong>\u00a0avec assez d&#8217;esprit<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; (&#8220;She was born with quite a mind of her own&#8221;, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/lhomme-au-masque-de-fer-iron-man-pour-les-ironiques\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Alexandre Dumas<\/span><\/a>, <em>M\u00e9moires d&#8217;une aveugle: Madame du Deffand<\/em>: Volume 1 &#8211; Page 258<\/strong>)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8220;<em><strong>Elle \u00e9tait devenue si malheureuse que j&#8217;en <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">ai eu<\/span> piti\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; (&#8220;She became so miserable that I felt pity for her&#8221;, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/all-for-one-and-one-for-al-exandre-dumas\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Alexandre Dumas<\/span><\/a>, <em>Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge<\/em> &#8211; Page 77<\/strong>)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\"><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">But watch out my friends!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The <em><strong>pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9<\/strong><\/em> can also be used for events at any determined point in the past, when it&#8217;s <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not formally used<\/span>&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">For example, it is the <strong><em>pass\u00e9 simple <\/em><\/strong>which should be used in the sentence: &#8220;<em><strong>J&#8217;<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">ai \u00e9t<em><strong>\u00e9<\/strong><\/em><\/span> ravi, plus tard, quand elle m&#8217;a envoy<em><strong>\u00e9<\/strong><\/em> un<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/dites-le-avec-des-fleurs-say-it-with-flowers\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> joli bouquet de fleurs<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/em>.&#8221; (&#8220;I was delighted, later, when she sent me <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/dites-le-avec-des-fleurs-say-it-with-flowers\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">a beautiful flower bouquet<\/span><\/a>.&#8221;) In the formal way, of course, you would say: &#8220;<em><strong>Je <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">fus<\/span> ravi&#8230;<\/strong><\/em>&#8220;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It is true that the<em><strong> pass\u00e9 simple<\/strong><\/em> and the\u00a0<em><strong>pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9<\/strong><\/em> tend to be used interchangeably by many French speakers, but strictly speaking, they do not hold the same value nor the same function.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Finally, and this may have hopefully been pointed out by your French teacher, the <em><strong>pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>can reflect\u00a0<em><strong>l\u2019ant\u00e9riorit\u00e9<\/strong><\/em> (the precedence) with respect to an event of <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-grammar-back-to-the-french-future\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">le futur proche<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(the near future): &#8220;<em><strong>Si notre <em><strong>\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>quipe a marqu<em><strong>\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>, tu me t<em><strong>\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>l<em><strong>\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>phones tout de suite!<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; (&#8220;If our team scored, you call me right away!&#8221;) \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9&#8220;&#8230; Two distinct words when coupled together can saw a bit of confusion in the minds of many, many, helpless new French learners! Qu&#8217;\u00e0 cela ne tienne (nevermind), we&#8217;ll try in today&#8217;s post to shed some light on the different uses of this type of grammatical tense &#8211; so you won&#8217;t feel too &#8220;tense&#8221&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/be-always-composed-with-le-passe-compose\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[9235,65933,65930,12138,65935,65932,65931,65726,145,65928,65929],"class_list":["post-9985","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","category-vocabulary","tag-alexandre-dumas","tag-discours","tag-mode-indicatif","tag-passe-compose","tag-passe-simple","tag-preterit-indefini","tag-realis-mood","tag-rob-zombie","tag-speech","tag-temps-grammatical","tag-tiroir-verbal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9985"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20861,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985\/revisions\/20861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}