The passé simple: the past tense of French books

Three ending patterns

Remove the infinitive ending and add one of three sets. The vowel tells you the pattern: a for -er verbs, i for most -ir and -re verbs, u for a group of irregular verbs. The il/elle forms are the ones to learn first.

Shaded rows are the forms you will read most. Watch the circumflex in the nous and vous forms (parlâmes, finîmes), and the -èrent of -er verbs: ils parlèrent, they spoke.

The irregular forms you will meet on every page

Many common verbs have a short, unexpected stem. Once you can spot these, most of a novel’s past tense becomes transparent. Each card shows the il form and the ils form.

Reading tip: il fit (he did, from faire) and il fut (he was, from être) differ by one letter. Il vit can mean “he saw” (voir) or “he lives” (vivre, present); context decides.

Passé simple and imparfait in a story

In written narrative, the passé simple replaces the passé composé, but the imparfait keeps its usual job. The same division you learned in past tenses together applies: events in one tense, background in the other.

Reading a literary passage

A short passage in the style of a nineteenth-century novel. Passé simple verbs are in red, imparfait in blue. Every word has its English meaning underneath.

You mostly need to read the passé simple, not write it. The trick is to map each form back to its infinitive. Tap a form to hear it with its everyday passé composé.

The passé simple marks a text as written narrative. Here are four typical openings from different genres.

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