2. The past tense of "read" would be "read". The imperfect tense - Easy Learning Grammar French What is the imperfect tense? Below you can see how to conjugate regular IR verbs in the past tense. You’ll see that you need to follow the same pattern of using avoir in the present tense then adding in the past participle. The "perfect" or composite past - Le temps parfait ou passé composé This is the tense which is most commonly used for describing events in the past in modern less formal written French, and in modern spoken French. How well do you know the French Present, Past, Future Tenses ? 2. "She laughed." Click on the link to be taken to the topic, then put your knowledge to the test in the free exercises. When speaking French, what you’ll hear more often than not are verbs in the indicative tenses. To talk about things that have been or were being completed in the past, you'll need to know how to use the past tense in French. Asked in … For non-French speakers, this can be an easier, faster way to learn to speak French, and it is also a great prerequisite to learning the other tenses. The present participle of read is reading. - Lawless French Once you're happy with forming the perfect tense of -er verbs, here are some other things to look at: Forming the past participle (and thus the perfect tense) of other verbs. If you liked this post, there are two more that I plan on sharing real soon. One past form. In French, the past tense is composed of the passé composé, l’imparfait, the passé simple (literature); as well as other compound tenses such as the pluperfect. Expressing past time in French The preterite and perfect tenses There are four indicative past tenses in French, plus less common subjunctive forms. If you’re comfortable conjugating French verbs in the present and past tenses, this live, online group French class is for you! Conjugating and translating Ftrench verbs in the three different groups The simple past tense is an indicative tense that has a similar, almost identical meaning to that of the passé composé.It expresses events where both the beginning and the end of the event have occurred in the past, and where duration is not a defining characteristic of the event. Though they are speeled the same, the present tense is pronounced like "reed" while the past tense is pronounced like "red". A few verbs use être rather than avoir. See: when to use avoir and être. The tenses used in French to place a verb in time: Présent: The present; Passé simple: The preterite or simple past; Passé compose: The past tense / narration tense; Passé antérieur: The past perfect; Imparfait: The present subjunctive In the following pages you can find explanations and examples for each of the French tenses. Le Pendentif, an Easy Read in French for Beginners, **Past Tense** book. For choisir (to choose) it’s, “choisi”. However, in this quick method, you can use the indicative directly to state recent past, near future and ongoing actions without learning the other complicated tenses.