BEGINNER2. LESSON #1. AU TÉLÉPHONE

Au téléphone :
- J’ai passé une très bonne soirée, maman.
- Je suis sûr que tu as mangé du poulet.
- Et il a mangé du poisson. Mais ce n’est pas ce que j’ai aimé le plus dans la soirée.
- Dis-moi ?
- Nous avons parlé de tant de choses et…
- Quoi ?
- Il m’a ramenée à la maison.
- Et ?
- Et je l’ai invité à rentrer.
- Et ?
- Et ça suffit, maman, je ne suis plus au lycée… Je ne dis pas tout !
TRANSLATION
 - I had a wonderful evening, mom.
- I’m sure you had the chicken.
- And he had fish. But that’s not what I enjoyed the most in the evening.
- Tell me ?
- We talked about so many things and…
- And ?
- I took me back home.
- And ?
- And I invited him to come in.
- And ?
- And that’s enough, Mom, I’m not in high school anymore… I don’t tell everything.
Téléphone (masc.) : telephone, phone.
Tant de : so many.
Ramener : take back, bring back.
Ça suffit : it's enough.
This is the first time we meet a past form.
Here we have what we call passé composé. There are other past tenses in French but let’s begin with this one which
is the most used and whose formation is quite easy to understand.

Look at the verbs we have here :
j’ai passé, tu as mangé, il a mangé, nous avons parlé, il m’a ramenée.

You can notice they’re always made of two parts.
The passé composé is a compound tense (that’s what means composé in French).
It has two parts :
1. Present tense of the auxiliary verb. This auxiliary can be être or avoir (it depends on verbs) and agrees with the subject of the sentence.
J’ai … , tu as …, il a …
2. Past participle of the main verb (equivalent of the -ed form of English verbs).
Passé, mangé, parlé, ramenée

It’s the main subject of the next 8 lessons. We take the time to introduce that tense without any rush.
Translate in French :
1. I had a wonderful evening.
2. I had chicken and you had fish
3. I enjoyed it very much.

Translate in English :
1. J’ai passé un bon moment.
2. Nous avons parlé de toi.
3. Ca suffit !

What do you understand ?


Answers
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