The Passé Simple
The Passé Simple (pronounce pah-say sahm-pluh) is often used in place of the Passé Compose (pronounce pah-say com-poe-say) in historical or literary texts. I don’t recommend using it in real life as my French teacher told me it’s pretentious, not typically used in day-to-day, and hell to conjugate, but knock yourself out, kiddo.
Form the Passé Simple by replacing the infinitive ending (aka: -er, -ir, -re) with the Passé Simple ending.
-Er verbs: ai / as / a / âmes / âtes / érent. -Re and -ir verbs: is / is / it / imes ites / irent/
The verbs avoir, être, faire, mourir, naître, and venir are irregular in the Passé Simple, so good luck with those.
Some other irregular verbs base their stem on their past participle: Boire (bu) > bus / bus / but / bûmes / bûtes / burent.
Ex: Je mangeai une pomme. (don’t worry about that extra e added between the g and ai in manger, French is weird and I recall my teacher telling me it alters the G pronunciation in the word, but don’t worry about it. Google it if you must.) Tu frappas ma porte (You knocked on my door).
In summary, good luck and Merlin forbid you ever actually have to use the Passé Simple.
